TikTok’s American spinoff, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, has finally been established after years in limbo. TikTok users do not have to download a new app, and the coveted algorithm will stay. Designed to comply with the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, or the “TikTok ban,” the new joint venture will “retrain, test and update” the algorithm based on U.S. user data and secure it in Oracle’s cloud infrastructure.
President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that he is “so happy to have helped in saving TikTok.”
According to an unnamed source at the White House, the algorithm will be “leased” from Bytedance, TikTok’s China-based parent company. This has raised concerns from critics about whether the new joint venture is really severing its operational relationship with Bytedance, which is required of a “qualified divestment” per the TikTok ban.
The new entity has three managing investors, private equity firm Silver Lake, U.S. tech giant Oracle and Abu-Dhabi based investment firm MGX, which each own 15% of the joint venture. Bytedance owns 19.9% of the company, just under the threshold defined by the TikTok ban, and TikTok’s CEO, Shou Chew, holds a seat on its board. The rest of the company is owned by a consortium of independent investors including Dell and existing ByteDance investors. The CEO of the new company is Adam Presser, who was previously TikTok’s head of operations. The American app will be interoperable with TikTok’s global business, according to the press release, providing U.S. users with a “global TikTok experience.”
This solution was designed to preserve the app that is beloved by hundreds of millions of American users. Other bidders, like the consortium of potential investors led by Frank McCourt, sought to create a whole new app and algorithm from scratch. This solution was not ideal. TikTok’s algorithm is highly effective — as in, addictive — and exceptionally hard to replicate.
Bytedance launched TikTok in 2018 after acquiring the short-form video app, Musical.ly. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States began investigating the acquisition in 2019, determining in August 2020 that TikTok posed a credible threat to U.S. national security. Washington’s main concerns have been with data security and the influence of the algorithm on American minds. Chinese law compels companies like Bytedance to hand over proprietary data at the government’s request, and Beijing is a notorious disseminator of propaganda and disinformation online.
Six years, three administrations and one federal law later, Bytedance is finally divesting TikTok’s U.S. operations. In theory, this joint venture preserves the functionality and experience of the app, even if it might fall short of the requirements of the TikTok ban. But as an avid TikTok user myself, the algorithm seems to have broken.
TikTok’s algorithm curates a feed that is highly attuned to the particular user. Many report that the algorithm seems to know them better than they know themselves. As a result, any changes are acutely felt. This reporter’s TikTok “For You” page is not only serving up content that feels disconnected from my usual feed, but it is also producing the same sorts of videos over and over. It’s becoming repetitive and boring, something TikTok’s algorithm is typically very good at avoiding. Many other users report experiencing something similar. Since the deal was announced four days ago, TikTok’s daily uninstall rate has skyrocketed nearly 150%.
Whether this is a temporary glitch or part of the algorithm retraining process is unclear. To date, the algorithm that U.S. users experience has been trained on global data and feedback loops. The fact that it will now be updated based on U.S. data might impact its performance and appeal over time, but this shift would be gradual, according to experts who spoke to the BBC.
A 2021 investigation by The New York Times into an internal document called “TikTok Algo 101” concluded that “While the models may be complex, there’s nothing inherently sinister or incomprehensible about the TikTok recommendation algorithm outlined in the document.” The overarching goal of the algorithm, according to the document, is to add daily active users. Ostensibly, this goal has not changed.
Beyond algorithmic glitches, some U.S.-based users are expressing concern that the app’s new leadership is censoring political content, particularly left-leaning or anti-Trump content, citing a decrease in views and comments.
Criticism has been launched at Larry Ellison, in particular. In addition to being the co-founder of Oracle, Ellison is a political ally of Trump’s, a vocal supporter of Israel and a close personal friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In September 2025, Netanyahu identified social media as the “most important battlefield” for Israel and TikTok as the “most important purchase that is going on right now.”
When Trump first clamped down on TikTok in 2020, he warned that the app allowed the Chinese government to “build dossiers of personal information” on American users. After the new joint venture was launched, users were confronted with an updated privacy policy informing them that TikTok was expanding the kinds of personal information it was collecting on its users.
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