These are the new owners of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture.
Four months after President Donald Trump issued an executive order for the United States to acquire TikTok from China-based ByteDance, a deal has been finalized, establishing a joint venture with American companies taking the lead on data and security.
ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of the U.S. app, then called Musical.ly, triggered a yearslong investigation and efforts by three U.S. administrations to require ByteDance to divest of TikTok over national security concerns tied to the Chinese communist regime’s intelligence-sharing laws.
The deal, finalized on Jan. 22, establishes the TikTok USDS Joint Venture, which is responsible for securing U.S. data and the app algorithms. Other apps owned by ByteDance, such as CapCut and Lemon8, will fall under the same requirements.
Who Runs and Owns TikTok Now?
The deal creates a seven-member board of directors to govern the joint venture, according to the Jan. 22 deal announcement.
The directors include TikTok CEO Shou Chew; Timothy Dattels, a senior adviser at asset manager TPG Global, where he previously chaired the Asia division and was a member of the executive committee; Mark Dooley, managing director at trading giant Susquehanna International Group; Egon Durban, co-CEO of private equity firm Silver Lake; and Oracle executive Kenneth Glueck, who heads the tech giant’s global corporate affairs and communications and advises the CEO on global strategy and policy.
The two other board members are Raul Fernandez, who will serve as independent director and chair of the joint venture’s security committee, and David Scott, who will also serve on the security committee. Fernandez is the president and CEO of IT consultancy DXC Technology, and Scott is the chief strategy and safety officer at tech investment firm MGX.
The board appointed Adam Presser as CEO of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture and Will Farrell as chief security officer. Presser previously served as TikTok’s global head of Operations and Trust & Safety and as an executive in WarnerMedia, including heading its China division. Farrell previously served as global head of business operations and protection for TikTok and has a cybersecurity background with 16 years at Booz Allen Hamilton.
Managing investors Silver Lake, Oracle, and MGX each hold 15 percent of the venture. ByteDance is retaining a 19.9 percent stake in the joint venture.
The other investors are: Michael Dell’s investment firm, Dell Family Office; Vastmere Strategic Investments, LLC, an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group; Alpha Wave Partners; Revolution; Merritt Way; Via Nova; Virgo LI, Inc.; and NJJ Capital, the family office of French investor Xavier Niel.
