TikTok reportedly signs $14B deal to stay open in U.S.
TikTok has reportedly taken a big step closer to ensuring its long-term operation in the U.S.
In an executive order signed Sept. 25, 2025, President Donald Trump said enforcement of a previous order requiring TikTok‘s Chinese parent company ByteDance to find a new owner for its U.S. business by Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025 had been extended until Jan. 23, 2026.
[READ MORE: Trump okays deal to keep TikTok open in U.S.; extends deadline to 2026]
TikTok has now agreed to divest its U.S. business to a U.S.-controlled joint venture that includes Oracle, according to reporting by Axios. The joint venture, said to value TikTok's U.S. business at approximately $14 billion, would also reportedly include private equity firm Silver Lake and the Abu Dhabi-based MGX investment fund and officially close Jan. 22, 2026, one day before the deadline.
Those three entities would collectively hold about 45% of TikTok’s U.S. business. Investors in ByteDance and some other new investment partners would collectively hold about 35%, with ByteDance controlling the remaining stake.
This is the deal that Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping reportedly gave verbal approval to in September 2025, although China has never publicly acknowledged any support of it. Oracle has been storing TikTok’s U.S. data on its servers since 2022.
According to an internal memo from TikTok CEO Shou Chew said to have been seen by Axios, joint venture members would be responsible for "retraining the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data to ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation."
In addition, a "trusted security partner" will audit and validate the agreement’s compliance with U.S. national security, with Oracle ensuring compliance once the acquisition is completed. The joint venture will independently control U.S. data protection, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurance, while TikTok will still manage U.S. global product interoperability and activities including e-commerce.
TikTok takes winding path to remaining open in U.S.
The continuing saga of whether TikTok will continue to operate in the U.S. dates back to the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which was signed by President Biden in April 2024 in response to longstanding concerns over possible ties between TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party and possible risks to U.S. user privacy (ByteDance and TikTok have publicly denied the validity of these concerns).
Due to this legislation, which makes it unlawful for U.S. companies to distribute, maintain, or update TikTok unless U. S. operation of the Chinese-owned platform is severed from Chinese control, TikTok briefly went dark in the U.S. during the weekend of Jan. 18-19.
In February 2025, an executive order from the White House mandated the federal government to establish a sovereign wealth fund, which uses government assets to invest in global markets, companies, real estate and private equity and could be used for the U.S. government to partially or fully finance a TikTok acquisition.
