A joint venture to take control of TikTok’s U.S. operations from ByteDance has been formalized, with Silver Lake, Oracle, and MGX serving as managing investors, each with a 15% stake.
Completing the investor consortium are Dell Family Office, the investment firm of Michael Dell Vastmere Strategic Investments; Alpha Wave Partners; Revolution; Merritt Way, controlled and managed by partners of Dragoneer; Via Nova, an affiliate of General Atlantic; Virgo LI, the investment arm of a foundation established by Yuri and Julia Milner in support of science; and NJJ Capital, the family office of Xavier Niel, a French entrepreneur. ByteDance retains 19.9% of the joint venture.
The JV said it would operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for U.S. users.”
User data will be secured by Oracle, with the platform operating an audited data privacy and cybersecurity program. Content algorithms will be retrained, tested, and upgraded, the new venture said.
U.S. users will be able to access the full global TikTok experience, with the U.S. JV managing global product interoperability and certain commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising, and marketing.
The JV will be led by Adam Presser as CEO, with Will Farrell as chief security officer.
The popular social video platform has been under a cloud of uncertainty in the U.S. since the government mandated that the platform would be blocked if it didn’t find a new owner, citing security concerns.
