The US and China have just about settled on a deal to keep video app TikTok alive in the US, and The Wall Street Journal reports that Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz are among the investors that will take a “roughly 80%” share of a new US company that will operate a new US version of the app.
President Trump first threatened to ban TikTok in 2020, claiming that the app’s Chinese owner presented a national security risk, and in 2024 a ban was signed into law by President Biden.
The “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” requires TikTok owner ByteDance to give up control of TikTok’s US operations or shut it down, but that hasn’t happened yet because, in his second term, Trump has repeatedly delayed enforcement of the law while seeking a sale to US companies.
“We have a deal on TikTok,” Trump said today. “I’ve reached a deal with China. I’m going to speak to President Xi [Jinping] on Friday to confirm everything up.”
According to WSJ’s sources, Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz will be the new majority owners of TikTok in the US. Oracle is a Silicon Valley database and cloud computing company co-founded by conservative billionaire Larry Ellison. Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz are Silicon Valley investment firms run by more billionaires (who else runs Silicon Valley investment firms?), including Trump adviser Marc Andreessen.
The new company will have “an American-dominated board with one member designated by the US government,” WSJ reports, and will require users to move to a new app. The US version of TikTok will reportedly run its own content recommendation algorithm with tech licensed from ByteDance.
Those details haven’t been publicly confirmed—WSJ cites “people familiar with the matter”—with more presumably to come following Friday’s meeting.
