[Update as of Jan. 27, 2026] The newly formed TikTok U.S. spinoff has had a bumpy first week, with reports of outages and accusations of censorship from high-profile personalities including singer Billie Eilish, multiple sources report.
Users have been reporting trouble uploading videos and viewing content that had already been posted, while others say some of their content is receiving far fewer views and engagement than usual.
For example, Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Law, said a post he created that was critical of the Department of Homeland Security remained “under review” for hours and still hadn’t published at the time of his post. And singer Billie Eilish accused TikTok of “silencing people” after a video her brother Finneas O’Connell posted about the latest ICE killing in Minnesota received far fewer views than his posts normally do.
On Jan. 26, TikTok acknowledged the problems in a post on X, saying that many of the problems were “triggered by a power outage at one of our U.S. data center partner sites,” and as a result users “may notice multiple bugs, slower load times or timed-out requests” as well as “0 views and likes on videos. “This is a display error caused by server timeouts; your actual data and engagement are safe,” the post continued, promising that TikTok would be “back to full capacity” soon.
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Original story from Jan. 23, 2026 begins-
TikTok U.S. Spinoff Becomes a Reality, Adam Presser Named CEO
After more than a year of delays and uncertainty, a joint venture has officially been formed that will allow TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S.
The Congressional order requiring that TikTok be sold to a U.S.-based company or be banned, due to national security concerns, was originally supposed to take effect in January 2025 but was promptly delayed by President Donald Trump when he took office that same month. Thus followed a year of further delays with a deal finally taking shape in late September 2025.
Now, TikTok has announced that the TikTok U.S. Data Security (USDS) Joint Venture LLC has been formally established and is majority American-owned. In the end, ByteDance, Chinese parent of TikTok, did not have to completely sever its connection with the U.S. entity: ByteDance will retain a 19.9% stake in the joint venture, and the U.S. division of TikTok Global will continue to manage commercial activities on the platform, including ecommerce, advertising and marketing.
The TikTok USDS Joint Venture will be responsible solely for the protection of TikTok’s U.S. user data, the security of the algorithm that governs what people see on the app and content moderation on the U.S. platform.
Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX Get Largest Stakes (after ByteDance)
The joint venture has three managing investors, each of which own 15% of the new entity: American investment firm Silver Lake, American tech company Oracle and Abu Dhabi-based technology investment firm MGX. The remaining portion (minus ByteDance’s 19.9%) has been divvied up among a consortium of investors that includes:
- Dell Family Office, the investment firm of Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies;
- Investment firm Vastmere Strategic Investments, an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group;
- Investment firm Alpha Wave Partners;
- Investment firm Revolution;
- Investment group Merritt Way, which is controlled and managed by partners of Dragoneer;
- AI platform Via Nova, an affiliate of General Atlantic;
- Virgo LI, the investment arm of a foundation established by Israeli philanthropists Yuri and Julia Milner in support of science; and
- NJJ Capital, the family office of French entrepreneur and telecommunications pioneer Xavier Niel.
TikTok USDS to be Led by TikTok Veterans
The joint venture will operate as an independent entity governed by a seven-member, majority-American board of directors and led by newly appointed CEO Adam Presser, a current TikTok executive who was previously Head of Operations, Trust and Security. Fellow TikTok executive Will Farrell also has been appointed as Chief Security Officer of the new entity.
The board of directors of TikTok USDS Joint Venture includes:
- Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok;
- Timothy Dattels, a senior advisor to alternative asset management firm TPG Global;
- Mark Dooley, Managing Director at Susquehanna International Group;
- Egon Durban, co-CEO of Silver Lake;
- Raul Fernandez, President and CEO of IT services provider DXC;
- Kenneth Glueck, EVP in the Office of the CEO at Oracle; and
- David Scott, Chief Strategy and Safety Officer at MGX.
“Overall, this deal is positive news for the creator economy — above all because it finally brings clarity to a long-running threat of a U.S. TikTok ban that’s cast a shadow over the industry,” Ed East, CEO and Co-founder of social marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy in comments shared with Retail TouchPoints. “What matters most now is whether this new iteration of TikTok in the U.S. performs as strongly as the original. The industry will be watching to see whether any changes to data handling or algorithmic training affect reach and content performance.”
Not everyone is a fan of the deal though: “Nothing about the underlying risk has changed; what changed is who captures the upside,” said Dean Lyulkin, a Registered Investment Advisor and founder of investment newsletter The Dean‘s List as well as small business lender Cardiff, in comments shared with Retail TouchPoints. “Start with Larry Ellison [Founder and Executive Chairman of Oracle]. Oracle already hosts TikTok’s U.S. data, and this structure turns Oracle into a permanent toll booth on one of the most valuable attention highways ever created. That is not a security fix. That is an annuity.
“If TikTok were truly too dangerous to exist, a Delaware filing would not fix it,” Lyulkin added. “But once the cash flows are redirected to the right shareholders, the threat suddenly becomes negotiable. This is how modern governance works. And the biggest danger TikTok ever posed was not the algorithm. It was who was collecting the rent.”
Oracle Takes Central Role in TikTok U.S. Security
As per the original Congressional mandate, TikTok USDS’s purpose is to “secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,” according to a statement. These security and privacy safeguards will be maintained through “robust” trust and safety policies, content moderation, transparency reporting and third-party certifications in which Oracle will play a leading role, including:
- U.S. user data will be held in Oracle’s secure U.S. cloud environment. The joint venture will operate a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program that is audited and certified by third-party cybersecurity experts. The program will adhere to major industry standards including the National Institute of Standards and Technology CSF and 800-53 and ISO 27001 as well as the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Security Requirements for Restricted Transactions;
- Retraining, testing and updating the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data. This algorithm also will be secured in Oracle’s U.S. cloud environment;
- Securing U.S. apps through software assurance protocols, and reviewing and validating source code on an ongoing basis, assisted by Oracle; and
- Safeguarding the U.S. content ecosystem and making ongoing decisions on trust and safety policies and content moderation.
The safeguards provided by the joint venture will also cover ByteDance’s AI video editing app CapCut and social media app Lemon8, as well as a portfolio of other apps and websites in the U.S. that were not named.
