The TikTok platform today formed its American entity "TikTok US" after years of negotiations with the Chinese owner of the social network, ByteDance, whose application is used by more than 200 million Americans.
The company has signed agreements with US companies Oracle, Silver Lake, and investment firm MGX from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to form a new joint venture - TikTok US, which will operate under "defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protection, algorithm security, content moderation, and software guarantees for users in the US," the statement said.
The agreement was also praised by US President Donald Trump, who thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping on his social network Truth Social "for working with us and ultimately approving the agreement."
Trump added that he hopes he will be "remembered long into the future by those who use and love TikTok."
The new CEO of the American part of the company will be Adam Presser, and he will work with a seven-member, mostly American board of directors, which includes TikTok CEO Shu Chu.
The agreement ends years of uncertainty over the fate of the popular platform in the US, given that Congress had previously passed legislation that would have banned the app from American users unless its American owners were found.
At the beginning of his second term, Trump signed an executive order that allowed the company to continue operating.
In addition to the emphasis on data protection, where US users' data is stored locally in a system managed by Oracle, the joint venture will also focus on the app's algorithm, which recommends content to users, which will be tested and updated on US user data, the company said.
Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX now each have a 15 percent stake, while China's ByteDance remains with a combined 19,9 percent stake.
Some TikTok users in the US have announced that they will stop using the app due to the new ownership and have uninstalled it, arguing that new protective measures may include monitoring users and cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has recently been conducting intensive raids in numerous cities and deporting immigrants.
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