Who Actually Owns TikTok?

TikTok, the social video app, has two different owners. There's the main company, ByteDance, which owns TikTok and its Chinese equivalent, Douyin. In 2025, a third arm was created, with U.S. control handed over to a joint venture, TikTok USDS JV.

Who actually owns TikTok is an interesting rabbit hole to go down. If you've only seen it at the surface, the reasoning behind the company's current situation is fascinating. Mostly, the corporate-level mess stems from the U.S. government, but also from other companies trying to muscle their way into the most popular social media app of all time. 

In 2021, TikTok surpassed Google as the most visited website, and despite some major optical issues from what's come out of the app, it remains extremely strong. However, the video app also has a history, which explains why three U.S. administrations have tried to curtail its reach, pushing it to the brink of a total U.S. ban. With it now split into three different entities, TikTok is quite the tangled cable to unjumble.

In 2025, after a near-unanimous agreement by Congress in 2024 that TikTok posed a risk to the U.S. and should be banned, the app was briefly blocked. The U.S. government, backed by the second Trump administration, blocked the app from being downloaded on Apple's iOS and Google's Android before it was made available again. Those who had the app could still access it, but it was unclear if or when the app would go down completely. 

When service to TikTok was restored in the U.S., a plan was put in place to sell the U.S. branch of the company off to U.S.-based stakeholders. That company became the TikTok USDS JV, and it controls the algorithm, data, and business operations in the United States. The warnings that came from particular users in the U.S. about what would happen have also come to pass in some areas. Users frequently report not seeing news or information about world events, or even U.S.-centric events like protests and the ongoing war in Iran.

Part of this is thanks to the new owners of TikTok USDS JV. They are Bytedance (19.9%), Oracle (15%), MGX Fund Management Limited (15%), and Silver Lake (15%), with a central focus on Oracle's involvement. Larry Ellison, Chairman and CTO of Oracle, has been hell-bent on buying up as much U.S. data and media as possible. Outside of getting involved in the TikTok purchase, Ellison has spent billions to acquire Warner Bros., with some reports indicating he's also targeting news outlet CNN to gain control of its output.

While there's plenty of information about ByteDance, the other three aren't as familiar to people. First, MGX Fund Management Limited is an Abu Dhabi government fund focused on investments in artificial intelligence (AI). It's run by Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, and Ahmed Yahia Al Idrissi, backed by the Abu Dhabi government.

Silver Lake is another private equity firm, but it is based in the U.S. It controls massive investments in multiple tech companies, including Unity, Dell, and payment service Klarna. Most recently, it was one of the firms involved with the purchase of Electronic Arts (EA). Alongside Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's firm, Affinity Partners, and the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, it's planning to be part of the takeover if it gets approved by the U.S. government.

Lastly, Oracle, which mainly provides sales-as-a-service (SaaS) software, has been incredibly busy in the last few years. Once one of those companies no one really knew about, it has risen to infamy over its recent Warner Bros. buyout and claims that CTO Larry Ellison wants to dominate the media space for his own purposes. It recently laid off 30,000 members of staff via email. Oracle is also heavily invested in AI, and has owned the programming language Java since 2010.