TikTok USDS Joint Venture Transfers U.S. User Data to Oracle Cloud

A newly established American-majority framework restricts U.S. operations, algorithms, and applications such as CapCut and Lemon8 with enhanced safeguards.

TikTok has strategically established the 75% American-owned TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC in Washington to alleviate prolonged concerns around Chinese ownership and the potential for a U.S. ban. The newly established framework, based on the existing TikTok U.S. Data Security organisation, aims to enable over 200 million American users and numerous businesses to continue engaging, creating, and selling while addressing national security requirements.

The joint venture isolates U.S. user data within Oracle’s domestic cloud, implements new controls for the recommendation algorithm, and incorporates software assurance and code review processes supervised by Oracle as a reliable security partner. The organisation is currently governed by a seven-member board, predominantly American, which includes TikTok CEO Shou Chew and MGX’s David Scott, with Adam Presser assuming the role of CEO and Will Farrell serving as Chief Security Officer. Ownership shifts significantly from Beijing: Silver Lake, Oracle, and MGX each acquire 15 percent, a broader investor consortium completes the capitalisation table, and ByteDance's stake is reduced to 19.9 percent. The identical protections apply to CapCut, Lemon8, and a broader array of applications, indicating that this is not merely a protective measure for a single platform but a strategic investment in the resilience of global social media within a fragmented, security-centric internet landscape.