This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
After years of political back and forth, TikTok finally has firm guardrails in place for its future in the United States. The short video platform has signed a binding agreement to form a new U.S. joint venture that will be majority-owned by U.S. investors, Bloomberg reported.
Oracle (NYSE: ORCL ) is emerging as a lead partner in the deal, leading a buyer group that also includes Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX. Both parties will each hold 15% of the shares, and the transaction is expected to be completed on January 22, 2026, pending final approval. Affiliates of existing ByteDance investors will hold 30.1% of the shares, while ByteDance itself will retain 19.9%, reducing its influence without a full exit.
Once completed, TikTok US will operate as an independent company with authority to manage U.S. user data, content moderation and platform security. Oversight will come from a seven-member board of directors, the majority of whom are U.S. directors. Oracle’s expanding position in cloud infrastructure and data security pushed its shares up more than 5% after hours.
There are still unresolved questions about the TikTok recommendation algorithm that ByteDance will license to U.S. entities. Even so, the deal marks the clearest step toward resolving a long-running U.S. policy impasse and securing TikTok’s place in the U.S. market.
