TikTok Divestiture and U.S. Tech Policy

After a years‑long regulatory saga, TikTok and parent ByteDance have signed definitive agreements to transfer U.S. operations to an American‑led investor group — Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi‑based MGX — in a deal valuing the U.S. business at about $14 billion and set to close Jan. 22, with the new TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC held 45% by those investors (15% each), roughly 30% by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors and ByteDance retaining 19.9%. The U.S. entity will be run by a seven‑member, majority‑American board that will control U.S. content moderation and policies, keep U.S. user data on Oracle‑run systems, require the recommendation algorithm to be retrained on U.S. data to guard against outside manipulation, and use Oracle as a trusted security partner with American auditing and oversight.