In a significant development for artificial intelligence governance, TikTok confirmed Thursday that it has finalized an ownership restructuring establishing a majority American-owned entity featuring a content recommendation algorithm that will be independently trained on US user data. The agreement addresses concerns about foreign influence over what content Americans consume.
ByteDance, the Beijing-based technology company behind TikTok, has agreed to reduce its ownership stake to 19.9% in the American entity, while US investors control 80.1%. The American ownership group includes three major stakeholders with equal 15% shares: Oracle, led by billionaire Larry Ellison; Silver Lake, a leading technology-focused private equity firm; and MGX, an investment fund from Abu Dhabi. Michael Dell’s investment firm also contributes.
The deal addresses bipartisan legislation enacted in 2024 that effectively banned TikTok unless it separated from Chinese ownership, with particular concern about algorithmic control over content exposure. Lawmakers and intelligence officials worried that foreign actors could manipulate what content Americans see through control of recommendation systems. The Supreme Court upheld the legislation in January 2025, validating these concerns as legitimate grounds for requiring ownership changes.
Leadership of the American entity will fall to Adam Presser as CEO, bringing substantial experience from his previous roles managing global operations and trust and safety. The entity will be governed by a seven-member board of directors, intentionally structured with an American majority and populated by professionals with deep expertise in cybersecurity and national security. Shou Chew, the current global CEO of TikTok, will participate as a board member.
Central to the agreement is the commitment to completely retrain the platform’s content recommendation algorithm using exclusively data from American users, with continuous testing and refinement to ensure the system operates independently from foreign influence. This algorithm independence represents a key technical safeguard addressing the core concerns that motivated the ban legislation. Additional protections include advanced data protection protocols, secured algorithm architecture, robust content moderation systems, and software integrity assurances. Both US and Chinese government officials have approved the arrangement, with President Trump expressing gratitude to Chinese President Xi Jinping for facilitating the deal.