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ByteDance announced on Thursday the sale of most of its TikTok operations in the United States to a consortium formed by Oracle, MGX, Silver Lake, and an entity linked to Michael Dell, which will control more than 80% of the new company, named TikTok USDS.
The transaction resolves a legal and political conflict that has lasted six years and jeopardized the continued operation in the U.S. market.
The agreement, negotiated for over a year, establishes that the new company will be based in the U.S. and have a board of directors mostly composed of U.S. citizens.
Oracle will take on the management of data and cloud hosting, while the recommendation algorithm will be developed and updated within the country, as part of the guarantees required by Washington to protect national security.
EFE reported that ByteDance will retain a minority stake of 19.9%, and its global CEO, Shou Zi Chew, will remain in his position and join the board.
The new CEO of TikTok USDS will be Adam Presser, a former executive at WarnerMedia, accompanied by Will Farrell as the head of security.
U.S. President Donald Trump celebrated the agreement and stated that he had "helped save TikTok," emphasizing that the app is now in the hands of "great patriots and American investors."
He also thanked the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, for approving the operation, which ends the veto that was imposed during his first term for security and propaganda reasons.
The spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiakun, refrained from directly commenting on the sale but reiterated that Beijing's stance on TikTok “has been consistent and clear,” urging Washington to maintain a “fair and non-discriminatory” environment for Chinese companies.
The sale marks the end of a prolonged technological dispute between the United States and China, and ensures the continuity of the social network, which has more than 200 million users in the North American country and over 1 billion worldwide.
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