From Beijing to Silicon Valley: How TikTok US ownership shift changed nothing and everything.

TikTok sold, America watched: Inside the chaotic US ownership shake-up that has everyone talking

A platform built for fun, caught in a serious political moment

TikTok has always presented itself as a place for humour, creativity and fleeting trends. Yet behind the dances and viral clips sits one of the most powerful data-harvesting machines ever built. The recent change in ownership of TikTok’s US operations has dragged that reality into full public view. What was once a background concern for privacy advocates has become a mainstream conversation involving government power, corporate influence, surveillance technology and the uneasy relationship between platforms, users and advertisers.

After years of threats, investigations, executive orders and political theatre, TikTok’s US operations have been carved out into a new entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. This structure places domestic control of the platform into the hands of a consortium of US-aligned investors and technology firms, with Oracle taking a central role in data infrastructure and algorithmic oversight. Silver Lake holds a significant equity stake, while MGX, an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm, adds international capital to the mix. The sale has been framed as a resolution to national security concerns. In practice, it has raised more questions than it answered.

The long road to divestment did not begin yesterday

The idea that TikTok posed a national security risk did not emerge overnight. Concerns around the app date back to at least 2019, driven by its Chinese parent company ByteDance and the fear that user data could be accessed by the Chinese state. In 2020, then President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13942, seeking to prohibit transactions between US companies and ByteDance. The intention was clear. Either TikTok would be sold, or it would be banned outright.

That effort stalled in court, only to re-emerge under the Biden administration with a different tone but similar concerns. In February 2023, TikTok was formally banned from government devices due to its extensive data collection practices. Importantly, this made the issue bipartisan. Regardless of political affiliation, successive administrations agreed on one thing. TikTok collected far more data than was reasonable for a social media app.

After years of regulatory pressure and public posturing, the White House encouraged a domestic takeover. Rather than removing TikTok from US markets, the platform would continue operating under new ownership, new governance and new data controls. Or so the promise went.

What actually changed when TikTok US was sold

When the ownership transfer was finalised, US users were presented with updated terms of service and forced to accept them to continue using the app. This moment triggered widespread panic. Screenshots circulated online, highlighting clauses that referenced sensitive personal data, precise location tracking, financial information, immigration status and even health-related content embedded in messages and searches.

The uncomfortable truth is that most of these policies were already in place. TikTok has always collected invasive levels of data, similar in scope to Facebook, Instagram and X. What changed was visibility. Under the glare of political scrutiny, users began reading terms they had ignored for years.

Yet there was also a substantive shift. TikTok was not reducing its data intake. If anything, the scope of collection expanded, with clearer pathways for data sharing, processing and external oversight. The critical difference lay in who ultimately controlled that data and who it could be shared with under US law.