On January 22, 2026, the TikTok platform entered into an agreement with investors to create a company in the USA called TikTok USDS Joint Venture.
The new joint venture was formed in accordance with President Trump’s executive order from September 25, 2025, under which the condition for continuing the app’s operations in the United States was its transfer to a consortium primarily consisting of American investors.
The $14 billion deal leaves TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, with only 19.9% of the shares in TikTok USDS Joint Venture, while the other shares are distributed among representatives of American and foreign business elites who have long-term experience collaborating with the Republican Party and Donald Trump personally.
Under the terms of the agreement, which defines the future status of TikTok in the USA, 45% of the American joint venture will be owned by the private investment company Silver Lake, the Abu Dhabi government-controlled firm MGX, which specializes in artificial intelligence technologies and managing high-tech assets, as well as the transnational technology corporation of American origin Oracle.
Each of the mentioned business structures will own 15% of TikTok USDS Joint Venture, while smaller investors in the American segment of TikTok include companies associated with Michael Dell, Jeff Yass, Stephen Case, and other representatives of Big Tech elites.
The selection of the network of investors and enterprises among which the assets of TikTok USDS Joint Venture were distributed provides Washington with the ability to achieve several goals simultaneously.
First, China loses the ability to maintain decisive influence over the algorithms of the American division of TikTok, and as a result—to manipulate American public opinion through promoting fake accounts, uneven content visibility conditions, and giving preference to materials that use confrontational rhetoric, polarize, and misinform society.
Second, the redistribution of control over American TikTok among financial-technological groups affiliated with the Republican Party solidifies this social platform’s role as the main communication tool for Republicans, in contrast to the increasingly less popular traditional sources of information controlled by Trump’s opponents.
The approaching 2026 midterm elections has increased the value of control over TikTok amid declining support for the Republican Party and Donald Trump personally among voters.
According to averaged data from the aggregator RealClearPolling, as of the second half of January 2026, Donald Trump’s approval rating as President is at one of its lowest levels during his second term and fluctuates between 42.2%-42.7%.
In all major nationwide polls conducted during January 2026, the share of respondents with a negative assessment of Donald Trump exceeds the number of those who support his actions and initiatives by 3-19%.
The crisis in support for the President scales up to a broader level of voter distrust toward the entire Republican Party—according to the Emerson poll from January 17-19, 2026, over 48% of American citizens plan to vote for Democratic candidates in the congressional elections, while 41.7% of respondents are ready to support Republicans.
The inclusion in the new leadership of the American segment of TikTok of financial-technological elites affiliated with the Republican Party gives the administration the ability to transform the information campaign in its favor.
This shift may also increase support among younger voters, who are simultaneously the main users of the platform and the electoral group most critically disposed toward the White House.
Throughout 2025, the President’s rating among Generation Z declined the most dynamically. While Trump’s approval level across all age groups decreased by an average of 8% in the first year of his term, the loss of support among young voters reached 21%, dropping from 52% in the early days of his term to 31% in December 2025.
In contrast, young users aged 18 to 34 make up 2/3 of the entire American TikTok audience. Among Americans for whom this platform is the main source of news, younger age groups dominate—thus, 45% of all citizens who use TikTok to obtain information about current events are young people.
The rapid growth in the number of active users of this social network and the high level of regular interaction by young American audiences with the platform has turned TikTok into a key channel for influencing those segments of the electorate where the Trump administration has suffered the greatest loss of support.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, through the right strategy of engaging voter attention and creating popular content, Donald Trump’s audience on this social network exceeded 14 million followers.
As of January 2026, it has grown to 16 million, which has further increased the scale and value of direct communication with online users, and also confirmed the Trump team’s ability to use TikTok as a tool for electoral influence on voters even amid declining presidential ratings.
Thanks to taking control over the algorithms of the American segment of TikTok, the active promotion of Republican political messages on the platform is now supplemented by the ability to shift informational emphases in favor of narratives beneficial to the Trump team. This also increases their visibility among young American voters and weakens competing information flows.
The creation of TikTok USDS Joint Venture, in which key shares were received by representatives of American Big Tech elites, occurred at a moment of stabilization in relations between Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Although companies directly controlled by Musk were not included in the new group of investors for American TikTok, Elon Musk, as a key representative of high-tech business interests, has deep and multifaceted connections with the leading participants in this consortium.
Thus, in May 2022, the Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust fund, affiliated with Oracle founder and chairman Larry Ellison, allocated $1 billion for Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social network Twitter (now X). Prior to that, Ellison reported that he owns 1.75% of Tesla shares, making him the second-largest individual investor in the company after Elon Musk.
The model of financial and corporate connections with Musk’s business structures also integrates the leadership of the investment and technology corporation Silver Lake.
Prior to Elon Musk’s purchase of X (former Twitter), Silver Lake invested $1 billion in Twitter, which allowed this investment company’s co-general director Egon Durban to obtain a seat on Twitter’s board of directors.
While in this position, Durban approved the purchase of the platform by Elon Musk. Partnership ties between Musk and Durban have manifested in other business projects as well—specifically, during Elon Musk’s attempt to privatize Tesla, employees of Silver Lake and Goldman Sachs advised the businessman, and the technology corporation itself joined the group of investors ready to finance Tesla’s privatization.
In January 2026, Elon Musk’s company xAI announced raising $20 billion in investments for financing artificial intelligence infrastructure, developing the Grok chatbot, and supercomputers.
Among the leading investors in xAI at this funding stage were investment divisions of Nvidia and Cisco, companies Fidelity, Valor, Stepstone, Baron, as well as the sovereign fund of Qatar and MGX.
In addition to investments in xAI and gaining control over a portion of TikTok shares, MGX, whose co-founder is the Abu Dhabi government sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, has also invested in other leading companies in the American digital sector—OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, and Binance.
In the fall of 2025, MGX, together with Elon Musk’s company xAI, the State Sovereign Fund of Kuwait, as well as Nvidia, Microsoft, and BlackRock, joined the consortium of investors that acquired Aligned Data Centers—a company that designs and manages data centers across the Western Hemisphere.
From the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, the trio of companies that became the largest non-Chinese investors in TikTok USDS Joint Venture significantly strengthened their ties with the Republican administration.
In the first days after his inauguration in January 2025, President Trump announced the Stargate project—an initiative to create new artificial intelligence infrastructure for various spheres of life in the USA.
Investing in the project, whose total costs will reach $500 billion during Trump’s presidency, was agreed upon by SoftBank, OpenAI, as well as two companies that since January 2026 are shareholders in the American division of TikTok—Oracle and MGX.
Silver Lake, the third investor company with a 15% stake in American TikTok, supported the Stargate Project indirectly.
In the fall of 2025, Vantage Data Centers, founded by Silver Lake, announced joint plans with Oracle and OpenAI to build data processing infrastructure for Stargate in Wisconsin, with a total cost exceeding $15 billion.
The new complex, which will have four data centers with computing power of about 1 gigawatt, is planned to be completed by 2028.
In parallel, MGX directly joined the financial operations of the cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial Investments (WLFI), which is under decisive influence from the families of Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff.
Although the Trump family, through a separate shareholder company, owns only 38% of World Liberty Financial, the presidential family and related organizations have concentrated actual control over the company’s management and receive a significant portion of its profits.
After the deprivation in 2025 of WLFI co-founders Zak Folkman and Chase Herro of their status as controlling owners, members of the Trump family receive 75% of the income from token sales and 60% from other World Liberty Financial operations.
According to Zak Witkoff, WLFI co-founder and son of Steve Witkoff, the company MGX will use the $2 billion stablecoin launched by World Liberty to finance a deal with the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
The selection of the cryptocurrency issued by WLFI for conducting transactions will contribute to increasing its market capitalization, and as a result—increase World Liberty Financial’s revenues, a significant portion of which the presidential entourage can use for informal financing of Republican political campaigns in the 2026 and 2028 elections.
MGX’s active participation in strategic Big Tech initiatives for the USA and in the personal business projects of the presidential family has formed a beneficial model of interaction between the White House and the UAE.
In this model, MGX serves as a channel for coordinating interests between the political priorities of the Trump administration and the investment-technological strategy of the Arab Emirates.
MGX, as well as other state companies and sovereign funds of the Gulf monarchies, become tools for the White House to attract funds from Arab states, and in return receive from Washington the ability to join control over critical digital media resources.
The Middle Eastern monarchies in this configuration of relations gain technological advantages. Thus, two weeks after the announcement of the MGX deal to invest WLFI stablecoins in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, the White House allowed the UAE to acquire advanced computer chips developed in the USA, access to which is critical for implementing the Emirates’ digital government strategy and scaling AI infrastructure.
A significant portion of these chips will be transferred to the Emirati holding AI company G42, which is headed by the deputy emir of Abu Dhabi and MGX chairman Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Economic relations with Donald Trump’s entourage and the Republican team in general have been built over the years by the new American shareholders of TikTok USDS Joint Venture as well.
Oracle founder and chairman Larry Ellison has long-term personal ties with the US President and since 2016 has consistently contributed to financing Republican politicians.
In 2016, Ellison allocated at least $4 million to organizations supporting that year’s presidential campaign of Marco Rubio.
Prior to the 2022 midterm elections, the Oracle founder provided $15 million to the Republican fund Opportunity Matters Fund associated with Senator Tim Scott, which became one of the largest financial contributions of that election campaign.
Although Ellison personally did not provide funds for any of Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns, he indirectly supported the Republican leader.
At the beginning of the 2020 election cycle, a fundraising event in support of Donald Trump’s reelection campaign was organized at Larry Ellison’s estate, and the day after Trump’s second inauguration, Ellison, together with the Republican leader and other Big Tech entrepreneurs, presented the Stargate initiative.
Some of the minority shareholders of TikTok USDS Joint Venture have more direct financial and personal ties with Donald Trump and his entourage.
One of the investors in the American division of TikTok is Vastmere Strategic Investments—a branch of the transnational trading-financial group Susquehanna, whose co-founder and managing director is Republican Party megadonor Jeff Yass.
Yass, who was already one of the shareholders of this mobile app even before the creation of TikTok USDS Joint Venture, allocated $99 million to conservative political organizations and donor funds during the 2024 elections, which is more than three times the amount Yass allocated to Republican campaigns in 2020.
During the first half of 2025, Jeff Yass allocated $16 million to the political fund MAGA Inc., which supports Donald Trump and campaigns against Republican congressmen disloyal to White House policies.
The company that will now manage TikTok in the USA will also be invested in by the firm Revolution LLC, founded by Steve Case. Although Case does not directly belong to the PayPal group and has no joint investments or deals with Elon Musk, he shares the main political positions and interests of Big Tech elites.
Similar to Elon Musk, Case supports the liberalization of the visa regime for highly qualified foreign specialists through scaling the H-1B program and issuing green cards to graduates of American colleges and universities.
Together with the group of businessmen that formed around PayPal, Case ensured support for the start of Vice President Vance’s political career and lobbied for his integration into the Republican political elite.
Thus, in 2017, Steve Case hired JD Vance at Revolution LLC, where the future Vice President’s responsibilities included promoting startups outside the leading technological centers of the USA.
A few days after the victory of the Trump-Vance tandem in the 2024 elections, Case positively evaluated the activities of the elected Vice President and expressed confidence that he would successfully work on developing the American entrepreneurial and innovative sector.
By joining the infiltration of JD Vance into the political elites of the Republican Party, Case pursued a goal identical to that of Peter Thiel, David Sacks, and Elon Musk.
Lacking a direct channel of communication with Donald Trump, the CEO of Revolution LLC aimed to solidify his own influence on White House decisions important for his business.
He also sought to form long-term personal ties with the future generation of party leadership, which would subsequently consolidate around the Vice President as the most obvious successor to the political course laid by Trump.
The inclusion of Revolution LLC among the shareholders of TikTok USDS Joint Venture demonstrated that the strategy chosen by Case is effective for ensuring stable communication with the White House and the ability to influence the administration’s priorities in technological and entrepreneurial policy.
The first sign of restoring constructive interaction between the Trump administration and Big Tech elites was the activation of informal contacts between the White House and Elon Musk, as well as the entrepreneur’s involvement in unofficial events and consultations.
The agreement concluded a few months later to create a consortium of businessmen to manage the American segment of TikTok more clearly fixed the transition of interaction between technological entrepreneurs and Trump’s entourage into a stable and reproducible format.
The approaching midterm elections, the outcomes of which pose high risks for Republicans losing their majority in the House of Representatives, have created significant political pressure.
At the same time, the Big Tech sector’s desire to restore and expand access to government contracts, as well as to strategic programs in artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure, has formed a mutual demand for deepening such coordination.
The agreement to create TikTok USDS Joint Venture, which became a tool for deepening interaction with US Big Tech elites, aims to restore the Republican administration’s access to media and financial resources that are key to successfully conducting the 2026 election campaign.
The source of these resources is high-tech and financial business groups, the stabilization of relations with which began at the end of 2025 with Elon Musk as the key representative of Big Tech interests.
At the same time, restoring pragmatic cooperation with Elon Musk required the White House’s next step, which consists of scaling this interaction to a larger part of the financial-technological influence groups in the USA.
Although Musk controls the X platform (former Twitter), is the richest person in the world, and was a key Republican donor in 2024, his personal financial and media capabilities remain limited.
They are limited in comparison to the aggregate resources of financial-technological groups capable of acting synchronously and scaling funds and informational influence at the national level.
Although during the 2024 campaign the Trump team used interaction with voters through TikTok to maintain and improve their electoral results, the Republicans’ positions in this part of the media sector did not remain stable due to China’s retention of control over the platform’s algorithms.
Amid the gradual escalation of tensions between the USA and the PRC, the Republican team faced the need to simultaneously find a way to retain its influence on voters for whom TikTok is the main source of information, and to minimize Beijing’s potential to use this platform as a means of influencing internal stability in the USA ahead of the elections.
From the beginning of Trump’s term, the White House chose a utilitarian approach regarding TikTok. Since blocking this social network would cause Republicans to lose a channel of interaction with voters that cannot be fully replaced by X (former Twitter) and Truth Social, Donald Trump several times postponed the ban on the Chinese video hosting service through his executive orders.
At the same time, during this period, negotiations continued, one of the goals of which was to synchronize the interests of financial-technological elites and distribute shares among them in a way that formed their perception of the TikTok deal as a balanced process of distributing benefits.
The reached agreement, which is simultaneously acceptable for the Big Tech sector, financial-investment groups, and foreign investors, was intended to solidify among business elites with different and competing aspirations the understanding of the Trump team as a consistent defender and guarantor of their interests.
The achieved deal, which took into account the requests of Stargate Project investors, Arab partners, and businessmen who share identical views with Musk and the PayPal group on US development, increases the Republican administration’s calculation.
During the 2026 midterm elections, each of the mentioned groups is expected to strengthen financial support for the Republican team.
The refusal to transfer the American segment of TikTok to a single owner and the creation of TikTok USDS Joint Venture as a joint venture with multiple investors became the first clear step by the White House.
This step aims to restore and deepen a constructive model of cooperation with the majority of potentially interested parties in the Republican Party’s victory.
According to the White House’s calculation, the stability of relations with each of them, as well as internally coordinated activities among the entrepreneurial groups themselves, is the basis for consolidating efforts ahead of the elections and a way to reduce the risks of defeat in them.
The stabilization of relations within key pro-Republican business groups is now converted into intraparty stability. As a result, it enhances the presidential team’s ability to fully ensure the implementation of its policy following the 2026 elections, as well as the continuity and reproducibility of the political course laid by Donald Trump after the current presidential term.
Thus, the approaching midterm elections and the start of the 2028 presidential campaign after them will encourage the White House to further activate cooperation with financial-technological elites, as well as transform existing compromises into long-term, consolidated, and guaranteed agreements on the part of the administration.
