In a last-minute deal that critics are calling a billionaire takeover of America’s digital public square, TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance has signed binding agreements with a consortium of U.S. and global investors—including tech giant Oracle and firms linked to Trump allies—to avoid a government ban, effectively handing control of the app’s 170 million American users to a new corporate board.
The deal, set to close on January 22, ends years of Washington’s attempts to force a full divestment over national security fears by creating a new joint venture. Under the structure, ByteDance will retain a significant 19.9% stake and a board seat, while Oracle (co-founded by major Trump donor Larry Ellison), Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX will each take 15%. Another 30.1% will go to existing ByteDance investor affiliates, meaning American-linked entities will control 80.1% of the new TikTok U.S. entity.
The “Trusted” Partner: Oracle’s Win and the Algorithm Loophole
The agreement, which follows President Donald Trump’s repeated delays of a congressionally mandated ban, centers on Oracle. The company, named the “trusted security partner,” will not only be a major owner but will also license TikTok’s coveted AI recommendation algorithm. The White House says the algorithm will be “retrained” on U.S. user data to ensure feeds are “free from outside manipulation.”
However, this arrangement reveals the deal’s core controversy: ByteDance will retain ownership of the algorithm’s underlying source code, merely licensing it to the U.S. venture. This critical detail has drawn fierce criticism from lawmakers like Senate Democrat Ron Wyden, who said the deal “wouldn’t do a thing to protect the privacy of American users” and questioned if it “will even put TikTok’s algorithm in safer hands.”
