On January 24, TikTok announced the establishment of a U.S. data security joint venture. According to "Business Insider", TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi sent a memo to U.S. employees on Thursday to celebrate the "good news" and thank everyone for their "resilience."


Zhou Shouzi

Zhou Shouzi also announced that “more than 200 million Americans have come to TikTok to entertain, learn, and grow their businesses in the broader global community.”

"Business Insider" believes that the new joint venture is a major victory for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, which means that they can continue to operate in the United States without cutting off American users from the rest of the world. This arrangement also means a victory for new American investors in TikTok, because they can use this to invest in the rapidly growing TikTok.

The following is the full text of Zhou Shouzi’s memorandum:

I'm happy to share some good news with you all.

Pursuant to the executive order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025, TikTok U.S. Data Security Joint Venture LLC was officially established today, allowing our U.S. users to continue to discover content, create and thrive as part of TikTok’s vibrant global community and experience.

As the company takes this important step, I am also proud to share with you that more than 200 million Americans have come to TikTok to entertain, learn, and grow their businesses in the broader global community. We sincerely thank our users for their extraordinary support and our entire staff for their unwavering dedication and resilience, which allows us to continue to provide a great service.

TikTok's steady growth in the US market has laid a solid foundation for the joint venture's future success. The majority-U.S. joint venture will operate under a clear set of safeguards to protect U.S. national security through comprehensive data protection, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurance for U.S. users. The joint venture will be led by Adam Presser. In view of his outstanding performance in leading TikTok's large-scale teams in the areas of trust and security and operations, the board of directors of the joint venture company has officially appointed him to this position today.

Product interoperability is crucial to ensuring that users and creators continue to enjoy the global experience they know and love. It is also key for the 7.5 million U.S. companies to continue to thrive on TikTok by reaching global customers. In order to ensure that we continue to provide users with a seamless experience, we have newly established a number of subsidiaries, including "TT Business and Global Services Co., Ltd.", which are responsible for managing global product interoperability and business activities such as e-commerce, advertising, and marketing.

So far, we have provided compliance training to all TikTok employees. When working with the newly formed U.S. Data Security Joint Venture in the future, I hope that you will continue to strictly adhere to data privacy, content assurance, code compliance, and trust and security practices.

Thank you all for your tireless efforts day after day to continue to fulfill our mission of "inspiring creativity and bringing joy".

Zhou Shouzi