Remember back in September, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that appeared to finalize some terms of a deal to spin off TikTok’s U.S. operations? Three months later, that same deal is apparently about to be official.
According to BloombergTikTok CEO Shou Chew told employees that TikTok and ByteDance signed the deal for control of TikTok’s US operations. It appears the terms of the deal are roughly the same as those announced by Trump earlier this year. A group of US investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX, will control the majority of the new entity while ByteDance will retain a smaller stake in the company.
According to Chew’s memo, the deal is expected to close on January 22, 2026. “Upon closing, the U.S. joint venture, built on the foundations of TikTok’s existing U.S. Data Security (USDS) organization, will operate as an independent entity with authority over U.S. data protection, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurance,” he wrote according to Chew. Bloomberg. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Notably, the position of Chinese officials on the deal is still unclear. Trump said in September that China was “fully involved,” but subsequent meetings between the two sides have so far produced vague statements. In October, China’s Commerce Ministry said it would “work with the United States to properly resolve issues related to TikTok.”
If a deal is indeed finalized by next month, it will come almost exactly a year after Trump’s first executive order to delay a law requiring the sale or ban of the app from taking effect. Since then, he has signed several other extensions.
