Congratulations to TikTok on landing this whopper! It will hand over a huge share of its American business to that same group of investors. This agreement aims to resolve a decades-long contention. The Biden Administration’s proposed solution is to make TikTok’s ownership structure comfortable to the federal government’s continuing national security concerns. The arrangement will see American investors assuming control over 45% of TikTok’s U.S. business, while ByteDance, the platform’s Chinese parent company, will retain nearly 20%.
The problem is that the U.S. government has been demanding from TikTok all along that it separate from ByteDance. They’re concerned that the Chinese government will be able to access sensitive user data. TikTok, which has garnered popularity among millions of users in the United States, has been at the center of this controversy for several years. Axios was the first to report the deal on December 18, 2025. Its primary goal is to ease these fears by returning control to the American investor.
As part of this new arrangement, the closing date for the transfer has been pushed back to January 22, 2026. This timeline allows for an orderly transfer of command. It also brings them into line with the National Security Terms laid out in a national security executive order signed by former President Trump back in September.
“A trusted security partner will be responsible for auditing and validating compliance with the agreed upon National Security Terms, and Oracle will be the trusted security partner upon completion of the transaction,” – [memo]
ByteDance CEO Shou Chew took pains to impress on Congress the importance of this deal. He described it as a “new TikTok U.S. joint venture.” This comment underscores the broader shift in governance to increase consumer confidence and respond to increasing regulatory scrutiny.
The move is expected to enhance transparency and oversight within TikTok’s U.S. operations while allowing ByteDance to retain some level of involvement in the platform’s future. The ruling underscores a growing movement among tech companies with ties to military and law enforcement applications. Regulators in jurisdictions across the world are ramping up their scrutiny of data privacy and security.
