What the Future of TikTok Could Look Like After Sale
When Elon Musk bought Twitter, it gave many people pause for thought. When he appeared to do a Nazi salute during the Presidential inauguration, millions decided to leave the platform altogether.
Now it looks as though a similar thing looks primed to happen to TikTok, with rumours circulating that a takeover of the social media giant by a US company is looking to be in the offing, coming in the wake of Donald Trump’s announcement that it would be banned in the United States of America altogether unless it was sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
The question is, what might it look like next?
Why it’s Being Sold
The main question that many people will be wondering when it comes to TikTok is why the company is being sold in the first place. It has grown to become one of the world’s most popular platforms, giving users the chance to record videos in both short and long form that then get shared with others.
Owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance, it first launched in the September of 2017 and soon saw a wealth of different content creators and influencers become famous thanks to its algorithm, which pushes certain videos onto the users of the platform that it is thought they will enjoy.
@lana.k.socialThe breaking news today is that TikTok has been sold and will continue to operate in the US. This is what we know about the deal, the specific still seem pretty unclear but I would love to know your thoughts♬ original sound – Lana | TikTok Coach
There have been numerous concerns raised about the platform over the years, including the suggestion that it is being used by the Chinese government in order to collect the data of users. The platform has been banned by the United States Army and Navy since the January of 2020, which was followed several months later by Donald Trump signing an order that would see TikTok banned within 45 days if ByteDance didn’t sell it.
That was revoked when Joe Biden won the Presidential election, but when Trump was re-elected in 2024, the idea of TikTok being banned if it wasn’t sold came up again.
Who is Looking to Buy It
In the September of 2025, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, his counterpart in China, had discussions around the future of TikTok in the United States of America. In the wake of the conversations, Trump announced on his own social media platform, Truth Social, that an agreement had been reached over the sale of TikTok.
Although this wasn’t confirmed by Beijing, with an official statement instead making reference to a welcoming of ‘negotiations over TikTok’, the likelihood is that it will be sold at some point in the near future. The obvious question, therefore, is about who will buy it.
The answer appears to have come in the form of what is being referred to as ‘a new joint venture involving US investors’. The private equity firm that has an interest in Manchester City’s City Football Group, Silver Lake, is believed to be involved in any possible takeover, as is Oracle, the cloud company that has taken on the data of TikTok’s 170 million users in the United States as part of an arrangement called Project Texas.
Trump says possible deal would keep TikTok operating in US. What to know about Murdochs, Oracles’s Larry Ellison and Michael Dell. https://t.co/NACD6d8mIp
— Courier-Post (@cpsj) September 23, 2025
The White House has said that the joint venture is seeking what it refers to as ‘patriotic investors’ for the app, whilst board members are expected to have experience in cybersecurity.
The reason a wealth of people may end up leaving the platform if the takeover goes ahead is that Rupert Murdoch and his son, Lachlan, are likely to also be involved in any takeover. Murdoch, of course, is the owner of the Sun in England, as well as countless different right-wing newspapers and television stations in the US, including Fox.
The manner in which Murdoch has used his power in order to control the governments of numerous countries since amassing his media empire has left a bad taste in the mouths of many, which is why there is likely to be something of an exodus from the app if the deal goes through.
Algorithm to be Retrained
Even if users decide that the takeover isn’t enough to drive them away from TikTok, the likelihood is that their experience using the app will be radically altered. The algorithm, which is used to determine what shows up in the feed of a user, will be retrained using the information of users in the United States of America.
It will be ‘audited’ by Oracle, which already has the data of users in its cloud system, which is something that those involved in the deal are claiming will be a ‘win’ for users in the US. Oracle also provides a cloud computing infrastructure for the likes of ChatGPT.
Such is the extent to which the United States government, and President Trump in particular, have been quick to talk about Oracle’s ability to dictate the market, the stock price of the company went up so much that it made Larry Ellison, its co-founder and Chairman, the richest person in the world for a brief period.
Users who have enjoyed watching videos from numerous different people over the years may soon find that their algorithm alters and changes to the point that their feed is virtually unrecognisable. Anyone who sees Twitter’s For You page will know precisely how wrong that could go.