TikTok US Joint Venture
David McCabe and Emmett Lindner (MacRumors, The Verge):
TikTok said on Thursday that its Chinese owner, ByteDance, had struck a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new U.S. TikTok, concluding a six-year legal saga that saw the app banned by Congress and ensnared in politicking between two global superpowers.
Investors including the software giant Oracle; MGX, an Emirati investment firm; and Silver Lake, another investment firm, will own more than 80 percent of the new venture. That list also includes the personal investment entity for Michael Dell, the tech billionaire behind Dell Technologies, and other firms, TikTok said. Adam Presser, TikTok’s former head of operations, will be the chief executive for the U.S. TikTok.
[…]
The agreement, which was hammered out over more than a year, resolves existential questions about TikTok’s future. The app — with its unceasing feed of lip-syncs, political endorsements, conspiracy theories and skin care tutorials — would have had to leave the American market if it did not separate from ByteDance.
The law requires the divestment “to end any ‘operational relationship’ between ByteDance and TikTok in the United States,” critics told the NYT. That could be a problem, since TikTok’s release makes it clear that ByteDance will maintain some control over the TikTok US app’s operations.
Previously:
Update (2026-01-26): Reece Rogers (Hacker News):
Now that it’s under US-based ownership, TikTok potentially collects more detailed information about its users, including precise location data.
Whether this represents an actual change in the data collected or merely a difference in description is something it seems Rogers cannot answer.
TikTok already collects similar data from users in the UK and Europe as part of a new “Nearby Feed” feature that lets users find events and businesses near them.
