After multiple threats of being banned, TikTok launched a new American-based subsidiary valued at $14 billion that kept the app running in the United States.
The joint venture included American-based technology company Oracle, American-based private equity firm Silver Lake and United Arab Emirates-based artificial intelligence company MGX, which each owned 15% of the new company. TikTok’s Chinese-based owners, ByteDance, still had 20% ownership of the joint venture, while the remaining 35% belonged to other investors.
“Today, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC has been established…now enabling more than 200 million Americans and 7.5 million businesses to continue to discover, create and thrive as part of TikTok’s vibrant global community and experience,” a press release from the TikTok Newsroom said. “The majority American-owned Joint Venture will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for U.S. users.”
Threats to ban the app in the U.S. began as early as 2020 when President Donald Trump, who viewed the app as a national security threat due to the collection of user data, signed an executive order in August 2020 that instructed ByteDance to divest its ownership of U.S. operations in 90 days or face a ban; however, the order was blocked that September.
Following Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, threats to ban TikTok diminished until Dec. 29, 2023, when Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, which prohibited the use of TikTok on any government-owned devices due to the same national security concerns. The United States Army and Navy had previously enforced bans on military-owned devices in December 2019.
On April 24, 2024, Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which gave ByteDance until Jan. 19, 2025, to sell its ownership of TikTok’s U.S. operations, which led to the ban of TikTok for 12 hours until Trump gave ByteDance an extension when he took office for his second term the following day. After four extensions, Trump signed an executive order on Sept. 25, 2025, titled Saving TikTok While Protecting National Security, that authorized the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to American-based owners, which was completed on Jan. 23, 2026.
With the transition to American-based servers, users have noticed a difference in TikTok’s content suggestion algorithm, an issue addressed by Vice President J.D. Vance after the executive order signing.
“The U.S. company will have control over how the algorithm pushes content to users and that was a very important part of it,” Vance said. “We thought it was necessary for the national security level element of the law.”
