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 deal is intended to loosen TikTok’s ties to China and address national security concerns that Beijing could use the app to surveil or manipulate its more than 200 million users in the United States. The changes enable “our U.S. users to continue to discover, create and thrive as part of TikTok’s vibrant global community and experience,” Shou Chew, TikTok’s chief executive, said in an internal memo that called the move “great news.”
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.
It was also the end of a legal odyssey. Since 2019, universities, several branches of the U.S. military, the vast majority of the House of Representatives and both President Trump and President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had tried to ban or block TikTok, with unanimous support from the Supreme Court. Influencers, mobilized by the app, lobbied politicians and mounted protests to save their feeds and follower counts. TikTok became embroiled in a trade war between the United States and China, as the nations engaged in a heated contest over technology and industrial supremacy.
But the drama dragged on for so long and with so little consequence that even some who once fought to save the app had stopped worrying about it.
Naomi Hearts, a 28-year-old content creator in Los Angeles who twice traveled to Washington as part of TikTok’s lobbying efforts, said she felt “detached” from the platform after years of upheaval.
“I feel like it’s going to be another day,” Ms. Hearts said in an interview this week, anticipating the deal’s completion.
It was unclear how much, if anything, the deal will change the experience for TikTok’s users in the United States. Since the outlines of the plan were released months ago, users have raised concerns about whether the new owners will overhaul the algorithm that personalizes their feeds. And experts have cautioned that the arrangement may fail to address the national security concerns.
