TikTok is the defining social media app of the current generation and it’s held tight to this status since they were renamed from Musical.ly in Aug. 2018. In reality, TikTok was the combined force of Musical.ly and Douyin, a Chinese domestic platform owned by ByteDance, which brought together a global user base and useful tech in the social media space.
The platform sees an active monthly user rate of over 1 billion users, according to the TikTok Team on Sept. 27, 2021, and is by far the dominant way for young people to stay informed.
On Jan. 22, 2026, U.S. operations of TikTok were transferred over to a new group, due to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act signed by Joe Biden, requiring them to sell completely in the U.S. or be banned. Larry Ellison of Oracle, and father of Paramount, David Ellison, investment firms MGX and Silver Lake, and others formed TikTok United States Digital Service (USDS) Joint Venture LLC. ByteDance still held on to 20% of American TikTok within this new deal, along with previous ByteDance investors who held on to another 30%, despite potential concern of holding onto the company violating the act previously set into law.
Abu Dhabi, UAE backs the technology investment firm MGX, who has received investment from Microsoft and other parties for their Artificial Intellegence (AI) interest, and had previously been involved in the OpenAI project “Project Stargate,” a $500 billion plan to boost United States based AI– supported by President Dolnald Trump.
Meanwhile, Silver Lake is a U.S. based investment firm that frequently invests in tech and software companies. All of these companies and people of interest have involvement from the current U.S. government in one way or another.
Consolidation of companies from many small owners to one monoplozing owner is a frequent problem in recent times. Legacy media companies like Paramount, for instance, are largely under a single roof that’s motivated by a partisan platform. TikTok, which is used to socialize and inform people of global events, will now be under similar control.
Keeping platforms like this from direct involvement, either from the U.S. government or another governmental entity, is the best way to remove censorship, bias, and security concerns. As governments increasingly enforce Digital Identification onto social platforms across the internet, it’s likely that TikTok will follow suit and prove this change happening in the U.S.
According to TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, they aim to “secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,” through measures like retraining the algorithm and relying heavily on Oracle-based Cloud technologies.
If everyone follows through on their words, this change will mark a big, but hopefully unnoticeable shift in how TikTok operates in the US.
