U.S. Ownership Shift Prompts California Review of TikTok
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Sacramento — State officials and cybersecurity experts are investigating alleged political content suppression on TikTok after the company announced a U.S.-majority ownership restructuring on January 22, 2026. The new TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, led by CEO Adam Presser, reports 80.1% American ownership and 19.9% retained by ByteDance, with Oracle hosting U.S. data and plans to retrain algorithms on domestic data. Users and creators reported sudden drops in views, blocked keywords and posting failures, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom to open a state review while TikTok attributed disruptions to a U.S. data center outage. Based on 6 articles reviewed and supporting research.
More context
Timeline
- 1. Years of U.S. national-security scrutiny targeted ByteDance and TikTok operations.
- 2. January 22, 2026: TikTok announces formation of TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC with majority U.S. ownership.
- 3. Users and creators report sudden drops in views, blocked keywords and posting failures.
- 4. Governor Gavin Newsom announces a state review into alleged political content suppression.
- 5. TikTok cites a U.S. data center outage while investigations and expert assessments proceed.
Sources
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