Consortium with Oracle looks to buy U.S. TikTok

If approved approved, proposed pact would lower ByteDance’s stake in the video app to 20%.

- By Bropy ForD AND Kurt WAGNER

TikTok’s U.S. operations would be acquired by a consortium that includes Oracle Corp., Andreessen Horowitz and private equity firm Silver Lake Management LLC under a deal that President Trump is set to discuss with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.

The framework agreement, unveiled on Monday by senior U.S. and Chinese officials after two days of talks in Madrid, would create a U.S.-based version of the popular social media app. Oracle, venture capital firm Andreessen and Silver Lake would all hold stakes in the new venture, according to people familiar with the matter.

If finalized, a deal would resolve a sticking point in Beijing-Washington relations and help shape the fate of China’s most valuable private company — a $400-billion startup whose video product gained some 170 million mostly young American users before getting labeled a threat to national security.

Under an initial agreement, ByteDance Ltd’s stake in TikTok would fall below 20% to satisfy a 2024 U.S. law that required the Beijing-based company to divest or face a ban in the American market. Once finalized, the app’s users would migrate to a new platform, a person familiar with the contours of the deal said.

TikTok’s U.S. engineers have been testing that app, which would replicate the recommendation algorithms that made the platform so popular in the first place, the person said. As part of the framework agreement, ByteDance would license the technology behind that, a Beijing official has said.