On January 22, 2026, the long-running saga over TikTok’s presence in the United States reached a definitive conclusion. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, officially finalized a $14 billion deal to transfer its American operations into a new, majority-owned domestic entity called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. The agreement, which received the public blessing of both the U.S. and Chinese governments, allows the short-form video giant to bypass a looming federal ban that would have otherwise gone into effect this week. Under the new structure, ByteDance has reduced its stake to 19.9%, meeting the divestiture requirements set by the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

The new venture is backed by a powerhouse consortium of American and global investors who now hold an 80.1% majority stake. Leading the group are cloud giant Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and the UAE-based AI investment firm MGX, with each holding a 15% share. Other notable participants include the Dell Family Office and Susquehanna International Group. This transition effectively moves the center of gravity for TikTok’s U.S. business from Beijing to a board that is now majority-American, providing the corporate oversight that U.S. regulators have demanded for years.

A cornerstone of the deal is the complete overhaul of TikTok’s technical infrastructure on U.S. soil. Oracle has been designated as the "trusted security partner," moving all 200 million American users' data into its secure, domestic cloud environment. Crucially, the joint venture has been granted the authority to retrain, test, and update the recommendation algorithm specifically on U.S. data. This "algorithm independence" is designed to ensure that the content feed remains free from foreign manipulation or propaganda, addressing the core national security concerns raised by members of Congress.

To lead this new era, TikTok has appointed Adam Presser as the CEO of the U.S. joint venture. Presser, who previously served as TikTok’s Head of Operations and Trust and Safety, will be joined by Will Farrell as the new Chief Security Officer. While TikTok’s global CEO, Shou Zi Chew, will sit on the seven-member board to ensure interoperability with the rest of the world, the joint venture maintains exclusive authority over content moderation, data privacy, and trust and safety policies within the United States.

The deal’s finalization was heavily influenced by the intervention of President Donald Trump, who had extended several enforcement deadlines to facilitate the transition. Upon the deal's closing, the President praised the agreement on social media, thanking Chinese President Xi Jinping for his cooperation and characterizing the new owners as "Great American Patriots." This political support was vital in navigating the complex regulatory hurdles that had stalled previous divestiture attempts, ultimately "saving" the app for its 7.5 million U.S.-based businesses and millions of creators.

Despite the change in ownership, the user experience is expected to remain largely seamless. TikTok USDS has promised that American creators will maintain their global reach, and the app will continue to feature international content. However, the move toward a localized algorithm means the "For You" feed may begin to feel different as it is retrained on a purely domestic dataset. The agreement also extends these security safeguards to other ByteDance-related properties in the U.S., including the editing app CapCut and the social platform Lemon8.

As the dust settles on this historic transition, the TikTok deal is being viewed as a landmark precedent for how foreign-owned technology companies operate in the U.S. By creating a model that balances global connectivity with strict domestic data sovereignty, the TikTok USDS Joint Venture represents a compromise that few thought possible a year ago. For now, the millions of Americans who rely on the platform for entertainment and income can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that the "ban" has finally been taken off the table.