The agreement between the United States and TikTok has been finalized The Chinese social media's U.S. division has been sold to a local joint venture

It's official: TikTok has signed an agreement to sell its U.S. division to a group of local investors. The news of the deal was recently communicated to the company's employees through an internal note signed by CEO Shou Chew. Some details are still to be defined, but the finalization of the agreement is expected by January 22.

TikTok's future in the US

It is currently known that the U.S. division will be called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC: about half of the company's shares will be controlled by a consortium made up of three companies — Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX. These are three very different entities, but they share a strong presence in the technology and financial sectors. The first is a large U.S. multinational specializing in software, databases, and cloud services, historically linked to TikTok in the United States for the management and hosting of local user data. Silver Lake is one of the world's leading investment firms, based in the U.S., known for its stakes in major tech companies, including Airbnb and Twitter. MGX, finally, is an investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates, relatively young but very active in funding projects related to advanced technologies and artificial intelligence, also supported by the country's sovereign funds.

The remaining 50% of the shares of TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC will belong to investors already affiliated with ByteDance, as stated in the note (although no further details are provided), and to the Chinese company itself.

How the deal was reached

The proposed agreement, advanced by Trump, aimed to implement the so-called TikTok ban, a U.S. law that required ByteDance, the Chinese company owning the platform, to sell the social network to a non-China-linked buyer – under threat of service blockage in the country.

The United States had already tried to ban TikTok in 2021, during Trump's first administration, which was particularly hostile to the platform, but those efforts produced no concrete results. In 2023, under President Joe Biden, the so-called TikTok ban was partially maintained, though it never actually came into effect. Trump, during his second term, had also repeatedly postponed the measure's implementation, aiming to facilitate negotiations for the sale of the U.S. division to local entrepreneurs — a goal that has recently been achieved.

The law was based on concerns that TikTok could be used by the Chinese government to influence U.S. public opinion or access user data, although there is no concrete evidence supporting these claims.

Why TikTok worries the United States so much

ByteDance, like many large companies based in China, maintains close ties with the Beijing government, considered a direct rival of the U.S. government. For this reason, for years numerous White House officials have considered TikTok a potential national security threat: according to them, the company could not refuse potential collaboration requests from the Chinese government aimed at interfering in U.S. politics. ByteDance has always rejected these claims, asserting that it does not share user data with Chinese authorities, and Washington has never presented concrete evidence supporting these concerns.

More concrete are the concerns related to political propaganda present on the platform, through the targeted promotion of certain content. A recent example involves Romania, where the latest presidential elections were annulled after authorities determined that Russia had attempted to influence the outcome through a widespread disinformation campaign conducted on TikTok.