{"id":355777,"date":"2025-12-19T01:32:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T09:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=355777"},"modified":"2025-12-19T01:32:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T09:32:05","slug":"tiktok-us-sale-is-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/tiktok-us-sale-is-confirmed\/","title":{"rendered":"TikTok US Sale Is Confirmed: Here\u2019s the How and the When"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>TikTok\u2019s sale to the United States has been a real rollercoaster. With the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/in-the-united-states-they-are-moving-forward-with-the-ban-on-tiktok-and-there-is-only-one-month-left-to-make-important-decisions\" title=\"\">constant fear of it disappearing<\/a>, the repeated extensions of the deadline, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/the-future-of-tiktok-will-be-decided-in-the-coming-days-in-a-meeting-between-donald-trump-and-xi-jinping\" title=\"\">back-and-forth of negotiations<\/a>, it\u2019s only today that we know\u00a0<strong>TikTok has already signed agreements to reorganise itself in the United States<\/strong>\u00a0and, with that, a concrete roadmap to keep operating there. We now have, as reported\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/12\/18\/tiktok-sale\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">by Axios<\/a>, a new corporate structure, a new ownership split and, above all, a target date: 22 January 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The when: the date circled in red is 22 January 2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The timetable that has been put on the table fits with the legal framework that has been pushing ByteDance, TikTok\u2019s parent company, to carry out a \u201cqualified\u201d divestment for the US market. This legislation was passed in 2024 as part of Public Law 118\u201350, and since then it has fuelled the political and business standoff around TikTok that we\u2019ve been watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here it\u2019s worth focusing on the most recent stretch: the White House kept extending deadlines throughout 2025, and the last expiry date mentioned for that cycle came on 16 December 2025,\u00a0<strong>a turning point that accelerated the closing of the deal<\/strong>\u00a0and has left 22 January 2026 as the effective date for the new system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The how: a \u201cjoint venture\u201d with a US majority and a new board<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The new TikTok revolves around TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, designed to take on certain responsibilities within the US and to operate as an independent entity. The structure, as published, looks like this: 50% for a consortium of new investors, 30.1% for affiliates of certain current ByteDance investors, and 19.9% that remains with ByteDance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Within that 50% there\u2019s an important nuance: Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX are each listed with 15% (45% combined),&nbsp;<strong>and the remainder completes the bloc of new investors<\/strong>&nbsp;that secures the controlling majority. Alongside this new company comes a seven-member board of directors, with a US majority, which is the other control mechanism, together with the audit and compliance commitments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What changes for those of us who use the app: data, the algorithm and moderation under USDS control<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If we look at the changes from our perspective as users, the new TikTok centres on four areas: data protection, algorithm security, content moderation, and ensuring the integrity and rollout of the software.&nbsp;<strong>The goal is for the US side to have its own authority<\/strong>&nbsp;to certify that content, software and user data meet the agreed terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is one especially sensitive point here: the recommendation algorithm. The text that has circulated talks about \u201cretraining\u201d it using US user data so that the feed is free of external manipulation. It remains to be seen how this will affect the recommendation mechanism, one of TikTok\u2019s strongest features and one of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/who-is-shou-zi-chew-knows-current-ceo-tiktok\" title=\"\">the main reasons for its success<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For those of us who watch videos, upload content or advertise, all the communication around <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/did-you-know-that-tiktok-emits-more-carbon-than-greece-this-is-the-brutal-environmental-impact-of-the-platform\" title=\"\">the agreement insists on continuity of the experience<\/a> and commercial stability. What we\u2019ll have to see is how the retraining of the algorithm affects the recommendation system. In any case, we\u2019ll know on 22 January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TikTok\u2019s sale to the United States has been a real rollercoaster. With the constant fear of it disappearing, the repeated extensions of the deadline, and the back-and-forth of negotiations, it\u2019s only today that we know\u00a0TikTok has already signed agreements to reorganise itself in the United States\u00a0and, with that, a concrete roadmap to keep operating there. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/tiktok-us-sale-is-confirmed\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;TikTok US Sale Is Confirmed: Here\u2019s the How and the When&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9262,"featured_media":355778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-355777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355777"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":355783,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355777\/revisions\/355783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355777"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=355777"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=355777"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=355777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}