A group of companies – including cloud services giant Oracle, venture capital firm Silver Lake and United Arab Emirates investment firm MGX – have entered into a binding agreement to form a new joint venture company in the United States, intended to take over the American part of TikTok.
Together, the new investors will control 50 percent of Tiktok's US operations. Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX will each have 15 percent. Current owner Bytedance will retain 19.9 percent of the business, while 30.1 percent will go to a number of existing Bytedance investors.
New conditions for data
The deal is expected to be fully completed on January 22, according to an internal document seen by the AP and Bloomberg news agencies.
The US company will have a seven-member board of directors, the majority of which will be American, according to the document. The company will also be subject to terms that “protect American data and US national security.” US user data will also be stored locally in a system run by Oracle.
Negotiations during the autumn
Tiktok's operations in the US have been debated for several years, and the app has been accused of posing a security threat due to its Chinese ownership. The fact that the American part of Tiktok now has some domestic owners is described by the AP news agency as an end to the uncertainty that has characterized the service's existence in the US.
The deal comes after the US and Chinese governments negotiated a solution during the fall.
US Vice President JD Vance has previously stated that the deal is worth about $14 billion, equivalent to about SEK 130 billion. Tiktok has more than 170 million users in the US.
