TL;DR: The new TikTok US spinoff splits the baby—the algorithm gets more local and Oracle becomes the official chaperone of American user data, while ByteDance keeps the commercial cash machine. The winners: ByteDance and President Donald Trump’s closest allies. The losers: probably the rest of us.

What happened: It’s finally over. A little over a year after TikTok briefly went dark in the US over national security concerns tied to its Chinese ownership, the popular social media app is officially spinning off as an American entity. The new company—TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC (catchy, right?)—will operate independently from Chinese parent company ByteDance.

The sale was a long time coming and happened in the nick of time. In April 2024, Congress gave ByteDance an ultimatum: Sell TikTok's US operations by January 19, 2025 or face a nationwide ban. After Trump took office, he signed executive orders delaying enforcement. The final deadline for this deal was yesterday.

The art of the deal: The $14 billion spinoff puts roughly 80.1% of TikTok US in the hands of (mostly) American investors, with ByteDance retaining 19.9%—conveniently just under the 20% cap mandated by law. Oracle (cofounded by Larry Ellison, one of Trump’s closest tech allies) and Silver Lake (an American private equity giant) are managing investors alongside MGX (an Emirati AI-focused investment fund), claiming 45% of the company. Another 35% goes to a mix of American firms, including ones connected to two more tech billionaire Trump backers, Michael Dell and Jeff Yass.

Rather than clean house, TikTok US tapped an insider to lead the new team: Adam Presser, formerly head of operations and trust and safety at TikTok, will serve as CEO. Shou Chew, TikTok global’s CEO (who got grilled by Congress in 2023), gets a board seat alongside key investors.

Why did this happen?: For years, Washington has worried that China could use TikTok to spy on Americans, harvest data on hundreds of millions of US citizens, or subtly manipulate the algorithm to push pro-China narratives. The new US company says the ownership change will "protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances.”

What changes?: ByteDance will no longer have access to US user data—it’ll be stored on Oracle’s servers instead. While the Chinese company will license its famously addictive algorithm to the US entity, the new company has vowed to “retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on US user data.” No bias here, promise. Content moderation will also operate independently from TikTok global.

What doesn’t?: Most of what actually makes money appears to be staying in China. ByteDance will continue handling advertising and marketing for TikTok US, as well as run TikTok Shop—a rapidly growing revenue segment.

The reaction: Predictably mixed. Some are relieved their For You page isn’t going anywhere. Others are wary of how much influence this gives to Trump administration allies—while not doing enough to cut off ByteDance, which is now the biggest individual shareholder in TikTok US. Last year’s brief blackout sent millions scrambling to alternatives like RedNote (a popular Chinese social media app) and Instagram Reels. But for now, Americans can keep consuming their endless feed of news commentary, absurd comedy skits, and viral food trends that made TikTok such a coveted prize in the first place. —WK

This deal is a win for ByteDance: It will keep and license the algorithm instead of selling it and continue to run TikTok's commercial activities, and the political risk that restrained it is gone. Also, it's an insane bargain for the US investors. The deal values TikTok US at around $14 billion. But TikTok US makes roughly $14 billion annually in advertising revenue alone. —BM

It sucks (complimentary)

When a dear friend sent me this bitsy vacuum, I was skeptical. I self-identify as a clean freak: If my pit bull presses his precious little nose up against a window, I’m right behind him with Windex and a rag. Why do I need a tiny vacuum? I have dishcloths and hands!

But then, small messes materialized: coffee grounds scattered around our grinder, dishwasher powder dropped from the container onto the kitchen floor, a hole in a bag of flour. None of these incidents added up to more than a tablespoon or two. Too little to justify fetching the Dyson. Slightly beyond the capability of a sponge.

When my son asked what it was, I said, “Let’s make a small mess!” and promptly demonstrated how speedily it vanquished a spoonful of sugar.

The Good: I concede that this little guy is adept at cleaning up small messes, and it’s low-key a joy to bust out. I store it in the junk drawer, and I’ve been reaching for it often for kitchen messes, but it’d also be right at home on a desk to corral any detritus from a sad desk lunch. The battery life seems solid; one charge is enough to clean up to six small messes.

The Bad: It’s not super powerful. You’re still going to need to wipe down your counters after sucking up whatever fine powder you’ve managed to dust across the surface. You will, however, be so tickled by the use of the weensy vacuum that it’ll barely seem like a chore.

Verdict: Signal (if you want small messes to morph from minor inconvenience to delightful undertaking) —AS

Disclosure: Companies may send us products to test, but they never pay for our opinions. Our recommendations are unbiased and unfiltered, and Tech Brew may earn a commission if you buy through our links.

If you have a gadget you love, let us know and we may feature it in a future edition. Or, if you want us to test something you’ve had your eye on, send us an email at techbrew@morningbrew.com.

Substack, the subscription publishing platform that started as a humble newsletter service in 2017, is breaking free from your inbox: A new app for Apple and Google TVs will now let you watch video content from your favorite writers right from your couch—because, apparently, we're done with reading as a society. We only need video now.

You may be asking, why? And that’s a fair question. But the fact is, as journalist Derek Thompson put it last fall, everything is television now. Last month, Instagram announced that it’s testing a Reels app for Amazon’s Fire TVs. The vast majority of time on Instagram and Facebook today is spent watching videos, not double-tapping your high school friend’s beach sunset pics. YouTube, the undisputed king of the small screen, pulls in over a billion TV viewing hours a day (more than Disney and Netflix). Substack wants to be more of a social app, and today, social media is basically TV. Substack rolled out video posts in 2022 and livestreams last year, and as of last March, about 40% of paid subscriptions went to creators who post video content.

Substack now boasts over 50 million users and 5 million paying subscribers. It's evolved way beyond its roots as a haven for laid-off media types and people with very strong opinions about urbanism. Legacy news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, have launched on the platform, and even pop stars are trying to be scribes, for better or for worse (mostly worse). There’s a ton of money in the newsletter business—CBS’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, sold her Substack publication for a cool $150 million last fall—and there’s a ton of money in the social media business. The bet: Mash them together and turn content creation into a machine churning out Succession levels of generational wealth. —WK

Chaos Brewing Meter: /5