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- TikTok told employees it signed a deal with investors for a US joint venture, per an internal memo.
- The move will allow TikTok to operate as an independent entity in the US, the memo said.
- The Trump administration earlier said it had blessed a sale of TikTok to an investor consortium.
TikTok reached a deal with a group of investors to form a new joint venture for its US business, according to an internal memo viewed by Business Insider.
The deal, which TikTok expects to close in January, comes more than a year after Congress passed a law that forced its owner, ByteDance, to divest from its US operations or face a ban, because TikTok was deemed a “foreign adversary-controlled” company.
The new US joint venture will operate independently in areas like US data protection and training its content recommendation algorithm while still connecting to TikTok’s global product and business lines like e-commerce and advertising, per the memo from company CEO Shou Chew.
The announcement is the culmination of a lengthy battle for survival by TikTok, which briefly went dark in the US in January to comply with the divest-or-ban law.
TikTok and ByteDance had sought recourse through the courts, arguing that the law — the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — violated the First Amendment. In January, the Supreme Court ruled against TikTok and upheld the divest-or-ban law.
Since then, TikTok has been facing a looming deadline to find a US buyer. The app’s future remained in limbo for months as the White House repeatedly extended the deadline and administration officials sought to work out a deal.
In September, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that approved the sale of TikTok’s US operation for around $14 billion.
Trump said at the time that Oracle and Larry Ellison would be part of the deal, and Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch may also be involved. Vice President JD Vance said the buyer group would include “four or five world-class investors.”
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment. The White House referred Business Insider to TikTok.
