TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has struck a binding agreement with American and international investors to continue operating in the United States, the video-sharing platform’s

CEO, Shou Zi Chew, announced to staff on Thursday.

The deal, set to close on January 22, will see half of TikTok’s US operations owned by a consortium including Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. ByteDance will retain a 19.9% stake, while affiliates of existing investors will hold 30.1%. Under the agreement, Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX will each control 15% of the company.

The move marks the culmination of years of US efforts to force ByteDance to sell TikTok over national security concerns. It aligns with an earlier agreement from September 2020, when then-President Donald Trump delayed enforcement of a law that would have banned the app unless it was sold.

In a memo to employees, TikTok said the deal would allow “over 170 million Americans to continue discovering a world of endless possibilities as part of a vital global community.”

As part of the agreement, Oracle will license TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, a key component of the platform, to ensure US data is managed domestically.

The platform’s fate has long been intertwined with US-China relations. In April 2024, Congress passed legislation to ban TikTok unless it was sold, but implementation was delayed multiple times. Trump said he had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who had approved the deal, though uncertainty lingered following a subsequent face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in October.

“TikTok has become a bargaining chip in the wider US-China relationship,” said Alvin Graylin, a lecturer at MIT. “With recent softening tensions, Beijing’s sign-off on the structure and algorithm licensing now looks less like capitulation and more like calibrated de-escalation, letting both capitals claim a win at home.”

While the White House deferred comment to TikTok, Oracle and Silver Lake declined to comment. The BBC has reached out to MGX.

Some US lawmakers voiced skepticism. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) criticized the deal, saying it would not protect American users’ privacy. “It’s unclear that it will even put TikTok’s algorithm in safer hands,” he said, noting that the platform’s recommendation system will be retrained on US user data.

Users and small business owners also expressed cautious optimism. Tiffany Cianci, a small business owner with more than 300,000 followers on TikTok, said she hopes the new investors will preserve the platform’s current experience for entrepreneurs. TikTok claims more than seven million US small businesses use the app to market their products.

“I reserve judgement on whether or not we have saved the app for those small businesses,” Cianci said, adding that she chose TikTok because of its favorable profit-sharing terms compared to competitors like Meta. Over the past year, she has organized protests in Washington and on TikTok to advocate for keeping the platform accessible. Photo by Solen Feyissa, Wikimedia commons.