January 22, 2026
As of today — TikTok is under new ownership. But there are a lot of unanswered questions. So we need to talk about what we know – and most importantly what we don’t know.
We know that last month the TikTok CEO Shou Chew sent a memo to TikTok US employees saying that Bytedance and the White House had signed off on a deal to sell off TikTok’s US business to a group of US investors. China has not officially said either way whether that’s true – but they haven’t denied it. Chew said the expected date to close that deal was January 22nd. Which of course is today.
We know January 22nd is a significant date because tomorrow – January 23rd is the final deadline president trump set to ban TikTok in the United States if this deal was not done. We also know President Trump signed this executive order back in September that outlines why he believes this deal to sell TikTok’s US operation complies with the law.
We know –the group of us investors who make up this new US TikTok entity that purchased TikTok’s US operation include Cracle, an investment firm called Silver Lake, and a UAE government-owned investment firm called MGX. Existing byte dance investors retain 30%ownership, and byte dance gets to keep 19%. There’s about 5% going to another group of investors. We also know this new TikTok entity is going to be governed by a 7-member mainly American board.
We know that Oracle in particular being involved in TikTok’s operation is not new. They have officially been TikTok’s data security partner since 2022 when TikTok US spun off a special company called TikTok US Data Security. Oracle has been housing US user data on US soil for years. I actually got access to TikTok US Data Security and reported on their security efforts, data privacy rules and work with the algorithm in this exclusive special report back in 2024. That’s going to be important in a second.
Now here’s what we don’t know. We don’t know who will sit on this new mainly American board nor do we know how they will govern this new US company.
We don’t know exactly what this sale means for the TikTok algorithm that we’re all used to. You may have your own theories or feelings about it – but the fact is — we do not know officially how this new US entity is going to handle the TikTok algorithm. Now there is some reporting that the new US TikTok entity will lease the algorithm from Bytedance and will “train” the algorithm in the United States. So let’s set aside the “lease” part because I want to focus on this thing that has a lot of people concerned which is – this idea of “training” of the algorithm in the United States. The fact is – that’s not new either. As I reported back in 2024 u-s-d-s has been doing exactly that since it was fully operational in 2023. Here’s what the head of USDS told me about the algorithm back then.
We also don’t know officially how this new US TikTok entity is going to work. And what we do know about it is very vague. Based on that same memo from chew the new US TikTok entity is in charge of overseeing the app’s operations, including data protection, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurance. We have no idea what any of that means.
The bottom line is this. The TikTok app as we know it is not going away. As of right now neither the new US investor-owned TikTok entity nor Bytedance has made any official statement about the finalization of this deal. But my sources tell me this is done and there will be no ban of TikTok tomorrow.
Read Trump’s executive order on the TikTok framework here.
