The TikTok divestment deal is done, and the company’s CEO is jubilant.
On Thursday, TikTok’s top boss, Shou Chew, sent a message to US staffers, toasting the “great news” and thanking them for their “resilience.”
He also announced that “more than 200 million Americans now come to TikTok to be entertained, learn, and grow their business with a broader global community.”
Chew has good reason to take a victory lap.
After battling for the company’s survival for over a year and a half, TikTok now has confidence it will avoid a US ban after its owner ByteDance sold off enough of its business to meet the demands of a 2024 sell-or-ban law.
The deal is a major win for TikTok and ByteDance, which will be able to continue operating in the US without having to disconnect US users from the rest of the world. The arrangement is also a victory for TikTok’s new US investors, a hodgepodge of investment firms and individuals like Michael Dell, who get a stake in a fast-growing business.
The deal involved setting up a joint venture with an investor consortium that now owns just over 80% of the new US entity. The group, led by managing investors Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, is tasked with securing US user data, content moderation, and trust and safety.
ByteDance, meanwhile, gets around 20% ownership in the new venture. It will also maintain control of key TikTok business lines, such as e-commerce, marketing, and advertising. The company is splitting up its US employees into different entities based on whether they’ll stay under ByteDance’s wing or work for the new joint venture, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC.
The closing of the joint venture agreement is the culmination of a half-decade saga for TikTok, which initially faced the prospect of a ban in 2020 under President Donald Trump’s first administration. The court blocked Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok, but the app was targeted again in a 2024 law known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
TikTok lost its legal challenge to the law in the Supreme Court a year ago, and it was only able to continue operating in 2025 due to a series of executive orders from Trump, who chose to preserve TikTok rather than destroy it.
Moving forward, Chew will continue to run TikTok globally, while trust and safety executive Adam Presser will oversee the US joint venture. TikTok staffers will need to “continue to follow data privacy, content assurance, code compliance, and trust and safety protocols” that were already in place, Chew wrote in his memo.
Read the full memo below:
I am pleased to update you with some great news.
Today, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025, enabling our US users to continue to discover, create, and thrive as part of TikTok’s vibrant global community and experience.
As we take this significant step forward, I am proud to share that today more than 200 million Americans now come to TikTok to be entertained, learn, and grow their business with a broader global community. We are grateful for the incredible support of our user base, and the unwavering dedication and resilience of our employees that has allowed us to continue delivering at a high level.
TikTok’s growth in the US nicely sets up the Joint Venture for strong future success. The majority American owned Joint Venture will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for US users. It will be led by Adam Presser who, today, has been chosen by the Joint Venture’s Board of Directors for his impressive track record with the company leading large-scale teams in the areas of Trust & Safety and Operations. Please find more details on today’s news here.
Interoperability will be critical in enabling users and creators to have the same global experience that they know and love, and for the 7.5 million US businesses to continue to thrive on TikTok by reaching customers around the world. To ensure this continuity for our users, new subsidiaries including “TT Commerce & Global Services LLC,” have been created to manage global product interoperability as well as commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising, and marketing.
To date, we have provided compliance training for all TikTok employees. Going forward when working with the newly created USDS JV, I expect everyone to continue to follow data privacy, content assurance, code compliance, and trust and safety protocols.
I thank you all for the tireless work you do every single day in fulfilling our mission to inspire creativity and bring joy.
Shou
