TikTok has dodged a ban and secured its long-term future in the US by announcing a deal on Friday that will see a joint venture take over US operations of the popular social video app. The deal marks the conclusion of a protracted battle over the app’s continued presence in the US, which dates back to President Trump’s first term in office.

TikTok in the US will now be run by TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which was established by a White House executive order issued in September 2025. At its helm will be CEO Adam Presser, previously the head of operations, who previously led TikTok’s efforts to ensure that the data of the app’s US users was kept secure. Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok’s international operations, will serve on the joint venture’s board of directors.

“TikTok USDS Joint Venture’s mandate is to secure US user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,” the company said in a press release. “It will safeguard the US content ecosystem through robust trust and safety policies and content moderation while ensuring continuous accountability through transparency reporting and third-party certifications.”

The joint venture has three managing investors — Silver Lake, Oracle and MGX — which each hold a 15% stake. Oracle will also be responsible for protection of US user data and of the freshly retrained algorithm, which will be specific to the US version of the app.

Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden both raised concerns over a potential national security threat posed by TikTok, due to its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance, which will retain a 19.9% stake in the new joint venture. During both of his presidential terms, Trump has attempted to ban TikTok, but also delayed the ban’s implementation. 

The deal announced on Friday arrived moments before the deadline set by the White House for TikTok to comply its September executive order. In a post on his social site Truth Social, Trump said he was “so happy to have helped in saving TikTok.”

“I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok,” said Trump. He also thanked China’s President Xi for working with the US and approving the deal. “He could have gone the other way, but didn’t, and is appreciated for his decision,” he said.

How TikTok might change for you

TikTok has more than 200 million users in the US, and if you’re one of them, the deal announced on Friday will allow you to continue using the app without the ongoing fear of it being banned.

It also won’t see you cut off from creators in China, or the rest of the world. People in the US will still be able to watch videos from Europe, such as last year’s viral “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” trend. TikTok users outside of the US will still be able to follow their favorite American creators.

In the TikTok newsroom post, the company addressed interoperability, saying that the deal would “provide US users with a global TikTok experience, ensuring US creators can be discovered and businesses can operate on a global scale.”

Where the experience might change is in the content that is recommended to you. Under the terms of the deal, TikTok’s algorithm will be retrained, tested and updated based on US user data. This will have a knock-on impact on what you see on the platform, according to Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester.

“TikTok’s power lies in its content graph — an algorithm that learns from thousands of user signals to deliver hyper‑relevant, highly addictive videos,” said Chickering. “With a US joint venture retraining that algorithm on domestic data, the experience will change — maybe for the better, maybe not. One thing’s certain: TikTok in America won’t be the same.”

In spite of the interoperability that will see US TikTok users connected to those across the globe, it does seem likely that the focus on US data will lead to a shift away from the global nature of the content that the algorithm currently serves up to you. 

“TikTok’s US algorithm will now be trained on US data, which means what trends — and what dominates feeds — will feel distinctly American,” said Chickering. “Global content will still appear, but its ranking will change.”

Exactly how this will look may differ from person to person, and will likely take some time to come into effect as the joint venture begins the retraining process. TikTok didn’t immediately respond to questions regarding how long it expects retraining the algorithm to take, when US TikTok users should expect to be impacted by changes and whether it will issue public updates about this process.

One potential pitfall the company might want to avoid, Chickering said is moderating the US version of TikTok in a way that tilts too far towards any one particular political viewpoint, or fails to curb misinformation. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) — and his subsequent algorithmic changes that alienated both users and advertisers — is a cautionary tale in this regard. With Instagram Reels already vying to replace TikTok, the company will likely want to avoid making changes that could spark a mass exodus of people.

“For now, it’s speculation,” said Chickering. “It remains to be seen how new leadership will wield this power and whether moderation policies will evolve.”

Other Services & Software