The TikTok Inc. sign in front of the building on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026 in Culver City, CA.
TikTok's U.S. joint venture seems to have survived a turbulent rollout with minimal change in usership, as early narratives of a mass user exodus prompted by service outages and censorship concerns now appear overstated, according to new figures.
Survey data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower show that, despite a surge in deletions following the announcement of TikTok's U.S. joint venture on Jan. 23, the average number of TikTok's daily active users in the U.S. remains around 95% of its usership compared to the week of Jan. 19-25.
The joint venture — officially the TikTok USDS Joint Venture — was established in compliance with U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order mandating the divestiture of TikTok in the U.S. from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
While ByteDance retains a 19.9% stake in TikTok's U.S. operations after the agreement, Oracle , Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX each own a 15% share, with the remaining shares divvied among several other firms.
Following the announcement, users were quick to express discontent over TikTok's new ownership.
The deal drew scrutiny, with prominent figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raising concerns about cronyism over Oracle co-founder and Chief Technical Officer Larry Ellison's involvement.
Following the joint venture's announcement that Ellison's Oracle would "retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data", online speculation mounted that TikTok would begin mining user data or promoting content supportive of Trump's policy positions.
Such concerns spiked on Jan. 25, with users claiming that TikTok was suppressing content critical of controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and censoring buzzwords like 'Epstein' on the platform.
Last month, CNBC confirmed that messages containing the word "Epstein" triggered an error message, but was unable to independently verify broader claims of political censorship.
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