Highlights of the New TikTok Deal

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Mark Carney and Trump’s statements at the annual World Economic Forum event in Davos, Switzerland naturally dominated headlines last week.

But in the same week, a development significant in the context of US-China tech contestation and information warfare also unfolded.

Here is how David McCabe and Emmett Lindner reported the TikTok deal for the New York Times on 22 January 2026:

TikTok said on Thursday that its Chinese owner, ByteDance, had struck a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new U.S. TikTok, concluding a six-year legal saga that saw the app banned by Congress and ensnared in politicking between two global superpowers.

I have covered the TikTok saga in the US in more detail in edition 129 of the Technopolitik newsletter. Here is a quick summary. Following years of spotlight on TikTok owing to ByteDance’s China link and a strong campaign by US lawmakers including by Marco Rubio (in his senator days), a US Congress legislation banning TikTok was signed into law by Biden in 2024. According to this law, the app could only operate in the US if ByteDance divested TikTok’s US operations within a year. But just as the deadline for divestment approached (the app even went dark briefly), Trump used his executive powers in 2025 to grant multiple extensions to ByteDance for reaching a deal with US companies. This let the app continue to operate for nearly 200 million users in the US.

A deal has finally been reached, and here are some highlights:

These highlights are based on reporting by the New York Times, Bloomberg and BBC. Also check out this NYT story.