TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, agreed to sell a majority of its US assets to a group of investors in a deal that would allow the short-video app to keep operating in the United States. The company told employees that it signed binding agreements with Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX to form TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. The move, according to the memo reported by DW, would end years of uncertainty about a possible ban.
The structure of the new venture is designed to shift control away from ByteDance while keeping the platform intact for its American audience. The consortium of Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX would hold 50% combined, with each investor taking a 15% stake. Affiliates of existing ByteDance investors would own 30.1%, while ByteDance would keep 19.9%. The company said the board would be seven members strong and mostly American, and that it would protect US data and national security.
TikTok also said its algorithm would be retrained on US user data to ensure the content feed could not be manipulated from outside the country. The joint venture would oversee content moderation and policy decisions inside the United States. The deal is set to close on January 22, making the timing important for a company that says more than 170 million people in the US use the app.
The agreement follows years of US pressure. Lawmakers have accused ByteDance of exposing sensitive data to China and using the platform to spread propaganda and disinformation. Donald Trump first tried to ban the app in 2020, Joe Biden later pushed a divest-or-ban law, and the app briefly became inaccessible in the US in January before Trump issued multiple extensions after returning to office. The new arrangement is meant to settle that long-running standoff.
Daimler Truck's plan also shows how auto and truck makers are trying to stage cuts without triggering immediate labor conflict. By relying mostly on attrition and early retirement, the company is buying time with workers while still seeking the same end result: a leaner cost base. The agreement not to use compulsory redundancies until 2034 gives employees some protection, but it also signals that the company expects the restructuring to play out over many years rather than in one hard break.
The scale of the savings goal explains why the company is moving now. Daimler Truck wants to direct money away from recurring expenses and into a business model that can survive weaker sales in key markets. Its US performance has been weak, and the European arm has been under pressure to prove that the Mercedes-Benz Trucks brand can stay competitive. The job cuts are therefore not just a personnel decision; they are part of a broader reset of what growth will look like for the group.
For Daimler Truck, the hard part will be preserving morale while cutting costs over years rather than months. Long time horizons can make restructurings feel endless, and employees often judge them by whether management keeps its promises on early retirement, site stability and job security. The company is asking the market to believe that a slimmer workforce will be enough to defend margins across Europe and the US. Daimler Truck is betting that a narrower structure can still support a global brand, but the pressure to prove that case will now run for years.
