 "TikTok signs Trump-backed deal, sells US entity to 3 investors in a bid to survive in America")
TikTok signed a landmark deal on Thursday to sell its US business to three American investors – Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX - ensuring that the popular video-sharing platform continues to operate in the United States. According to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press, the deal is expected to close on January 22.
In the memo, the TikTok chief executive officer, Shou Zi Chew, said that ByteDance and TikTok signed binding agreements with the three investors. The new TikTok US joint venture will be 50 per cent held by a consortium of new investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, with 15 per cent each.
Another 30 per cent will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, and 19 per cent will be retained by ByteDance itself, the memo stated. Meanwhile, White House officials said Oracle, which was co-founded by Trump’s key ally Larry Ellison, will license a copy of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm as part of the deal. This will expand on Oracle’s existing management of TikTok’s trove of data collected about its US users.
A controversial move
It is pertinent to note that Ellison’s role in the new venture raised concerns over the decreasing share of media firms not under the control of pro-Trump billionaires. Ellison’s son, David, is now driving wholesale changes at CBS, Elon Musk is in control of X, formerly known as Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg is overseeing both Instagram and Facebook, and Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
The agreement is also coming after a long delay. In September this year, Trump said that he had spoken with China’s President Xi Jinping over the phone about the deal and he had “a very good talk with President Xi” and “he gave us the go-ahead”.
In October, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the US and China “reached a final deal on TikTok”. Interestingly, back in 2020, during his first term in office, Trump had threatened to ban TikTok in retaliation for China’s handling of COVID.
In 2024, the US Congress eventually passed a ban on the app over security concerns, which was signed into law by former US President Joe Biden. The ban was set to take effect on 20 January 2025. However, the implementation was pushed back multiple times by Trump while his administration worked to develop a deal to transfer ownership.
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