U.S., China Near TikTok Joint Venture Deal

U.S. and Chinese officials are reported to be close to a framework deal to transfer TikTok’s U.S. operations into a U.S.-based joint venture majority-owned by American investors, cutting ByteDance’s stake to under 20% to comply with a divest-or-ban law. Oracle is slated to serve as the security partner, storing U.S. user data in its cloud, managing updates, and receiving a copy of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm. Under the proposal, American buyers would lease a copy of ByteDance’s algorithm; Oracle would retrain that algorithm from the ground up using U.S. data and collaborate with the U.S. government on source-code review, though it remains unclear whether this will produce a distinct domestic TikTok experience. The U.S. government says it will not take equity or a “golden share,” and the new company would have an American-majority board (reports say six of seven seats) with investors rumored to include Oracle, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, Michael Dell and members of the Murdoch family. President Trump is expected to sign an executive order asserting the terms satisfy national-security concerns, but final details — including Beijing’s formal approvals — are still being worked out as deadlines to ban the app have been repeatedly extended.