We all know Facebook gonna Facebook, people still do it for the ‘Gram, and X (the Everything App) is where people go to feel terrible about everything. But TikTok, that’s the social media app that the young folks use. (He says as an ambulatory pile of bone dust.) And yet, TikTok hasn’t actually be “legal” in the United States since around 2020. This due to the video service being entirely owned by Chinese tech company, ByteDance. In 2024, the U.S. government issued a warning that a full ban would go into effect if ByteDance doesn’t fully divest. Now, according to a new report, that’s very close to happening.
As reported on Deadline, TikTok has signed “binding agreements” with three managing investors. They are: a private equity firm called Silver Lake, the U.S.-based tech conglomerate Oracle, and Abu Dhabi’s state-owned investment firm MGX. Together they form a new TikTok U.S. joint venture named TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? The agreement will close January 26, 2022.
The TikTok U.S. joint venture will be 50% held by a consortium of new investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX with 15% each; 30.1% held by affiliates of certain existing investors of ByteDance; and 19.9% will be retained by ByteDance. This will technically satisfy the government’s mandate that ByteDance divest, which required under 20% be owned by a “foreign adversary,” which is China in this case.
The report goes on and gets very murky with legal- and businessese but the long and short of it is the move will allow TikTok to operate legally in the U.S. and will keep the app available to users. It also will evidently safeguard Americans’ data from foreign interests, which was the nominal point of the ban in the first place.
It should also be noted that this merger brings in another foreign government—the United Arab Emirates—as well as Oracle, whose founder, chairman, and chief tech officer is none other than Larry Ellison, a staunch Trump ally and the father of new Paramount head David Ellison. Oracle already provides data and computing services for TikTok’s U.S. operations. Shocking that the president would have so quickly greenlighted this merger.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.