TikTok announced on Thursday that its parent company, ByteDance, has finalized an agreement with a consortium of non-Chinese investors to establish a new, independent U.S.-based TikTok entity. The deal brings to a close a six-year political and legal battle that saw the popular video platform repeatedly targeted by U.S. lawmakers, caught in escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing, and facing the real possibility of being shut down in the American market.

Under the new arrangement, a group of investors led by Oracle, the U.S. software giant, MGX, an investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates, and private equity firm Silver Lake will collectively hold more than 80 percent ownership of TikTok’s U.S. operations. Additional investors include the personal investment office of Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies, along with several other financial firms. TikTok confirmed that Adam Presser, formerly the company’s head of global operations, will serve as chief executive of the newly formed U.S. TikTok entity.

The agreement is designed to significantly reduce TikTok’s ties to China and address longstanding U.S. national security concerns. For years, American officials have argued that the Chinese government could potentially use the app to collect data on U.S. users or influence public opinion through content manipulation. TikTok has consistently denied these allegations. In an internal memo to employees, TikTok CEO Shou Chew described the deal as “great news,” emphasizing that it allows American users to continue creating and discovering content within TikTok’s global ecosystem.

Negotiations for the deal stretched over more than a year and ultimately resolved fundamental questions about TikTok’s survival in the United States. Without a separation from ByteDance, the app would have been forced to exit the U.S. market entirely. With over 200 million American users, such a move would have dramatically reshaped the social media landscape.

The announcement also marks the end of a long and turbulent legal journey. Since 2019, TikTok has faced mounting pressure from U.S. universities, branches of the military, multiple presidential administrations, and Congress. Both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden supported efforts to restrict or ban the app, with the Supreme Court later upholding the legal framework that made divestment mandatory. At the same time, TikTok creators mobilized their massive online followings to lobby lawmakers and protest potential bans, turning the app into a symbol of the broader U.S.-China technology rivalry.

Despite the intensity of the debate, the prolonged uncertainty eventually led to fatigue. Even some creators who once actively campaigned to save the platform began to disengage. Naomi Hearts, a 28-year-old content creator based in Los Angeles who traveled to Washington twice as part of TikTok’s lobbying efforts, said she had grown emotionally distant from the app after years of instability. She described the deal’s completion as feeling anticlimactic, more like “just another day” than a major turning point.

For everyday users, it remains unclear how much the new ownership structure will actually change their TikTok experience. Since early details of the plan emerged months ago, many users have questioned whether the platform’s algorithm, which curates highly personalized content feeds, will be modified under American control. Some policy experts have also warned that the new structure may not fully resolve the national security risks that lawmakers originally cited.

The catalyst for the deal was a federal law passed in 2024 and later upheld by the Supreme Court. The legislation required TikTok to fully separate from ByteDance by early 2025 or face a nationwide ban. As the deadline approached, the app briefly went offline for 14 hours, causing confusion and panic among users. However, after returning to office in January, President Trump repeatedly delayed enforcement of the law, giving ByteDance more time to negotiate a sale to acceptable buyers.

According to the finalized ownership breakdown, Oracle, MGX, and Silver Lake will each hold a 15 percent stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations. ByteDance’s ownership will be reduced to just under 20 percent. Other investors include entities affiliated with General Atlantic and Susquehanna, both of which were early backers of ByteDance.

A December internal memo outlined that a majority of the seven-member board for the new U.S. TikTok company will consist of American citizens. Shou Chew will retain a seat on the board. The U.S. entity will also assume responsibility for moderating content, determining which videos are promoted, restricted, or removed from the platform.

The valuation of the American TikTok business remains uncertain. Vice President JD Vance suggested last September that the U.S. version could be worth around $14 billion. By comparison, ByteDance as a whole has been valued at approximately $480 billion in private market estimates, highlighting the disparity between the parent company and the carved-out U.S. operations.

President Trump formally approved the deal through an executive order signed in September, a step required under the 2024 law. The Chinese government has not publicly commented on TikTok’s announcement. In previous years, Beijing was seen as a major obstacle to any sale, especially after China updated its export control rules to cover sensitive technologies such as algorithms and source code. These changes gave Chinese authorities significant leverage over any transaction involving TikTok.

Last year, Trump administration officials claimed they had secured China’s backing for a deal, though public statements from Beijing remained ambiguous. The lack of clarity continues to fuel speculation about China’s true position.

Some TikTok users have expressed concern over the political affiliations of several new investors. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is known to have a close relationship with President Trump, while MGX has conducted business with World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm linked to the Trump family. Critics worry that these connections could influence the type of content promoted on the platform.

Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University, said the deal creates “more theoretical room” for certain viewpoints to gain prominence. He warned that fears of foreign propaganda could be replaced by domestic political influence, raising a different set of concerns.

Questions also remain about ByteDance’s ongoing role. Although its ownership stake is reduced, ByteDance will retain control of TikTok’s core algorithm and license it to the U.S. entity. Critics argue that this arrangement may not fully comply with the 2024 law’s requirement to eliminate any “operational relationship” between ByteDance and TikTok’s U.S. business.

“They may have preserved TikTok’s presence in the U.S.,” said Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “But the underlying national security issues are far from resolved.”

In many ways, the final agreement resembles earlier proposals aimed at distancing TikTok from ByteDance. TikTok’s challenges in the United States coincided with its explosive growth, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, when millions of people turned to short-form videos for entertainment and connection.

As TikTok’s influence expanded, concerns grew within Congress and the first Trump administration that Chinese laws could compel ByteDance to share American user data with state authorities. In 2020, President Trump threatened to ban the app and attempted, unsuccessfully, to force its sale to a group that included Oracle and Walmart.

TikTok responded by promoting an alternative plan known as Project Texas, under which Oracle would manage U.S. user data stored on American servers, while ByteDance would continue developing the app’s code under third-party oversight. Years later, negotiators have settled on a structure that still places Oracle at the center and keeps ByteDance partially involved.

“We’ve come full circle and ended up not very far from where this started,” said Lindsay Gorman, a former senior adviser in the Biden administration, reflecting on the long road to TikTok’s latest deal.