📱Tech: TikTok sells U.S. business

📱TikTok - Internal memo from Shou Zi Chew to TikTok employees

Here is the entire text of the internal memo, verbatim from Business Insider, with specific words and phrases highlighted for semiotic analysis below:

1️⃣ What is happening?

TikTok’s position in the U.S., and perhaps the world, is unique. It is the very first truly global consumer tech platform that originated outside of the United States. The only other truly global non-American consumer-facing tech platform I can think of is Spotify, which began in Sweden. TikTok’s explosive global growth was catalysed by Covid, and with that came scrutiny. Because China, unlike Sweden, is not a friend of America.

India banned TikTok in 2020, pre-empting a ban in the U.S. where rumblings of exploited-safety-backdoors-of-U.S.-user-data-by-the-Communist-Party-of-China had already begun. Yet it took another four years for an actual U.S. ban to be put into place, before the ban was enacted in January 2025… for one day.

Following U.S. president Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States one day after the ban, TikTok was back online. In the proceeding 12 months, several discussions between many rich and powerful people took place, resulting in last week’s announcement of TikTok’s U.S. business being sold to a rag-tag team of misfits and ne’er-do-wells… okay no, but it’s being sold to a consortium of some of the most eye-wateringly rich people on the planet. Specifically, 50% of this new joint venture will be sold to Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX (an Abu Dhabi-based investor), amongst others.

2️⃣ What was written, and to whom?

Chew’s memo is internal, meaning this was meant only for TikTok employees in the United States. So, obviously, it was leaked to the media. Having worked with the comms team in TikTok for a while, I can only conjecture that the memo was written by the PR team, in conjunction with the legal team, investor relations team, and government relations team, along with input from Chew himself.

DECONSTRUCTING THE TEXT

🗝️ Unlocking Meaning

I said earlier that the memo is written with deep consultation across teams. It reads as if different teams wrote different sections of the memo and they simply Frankensteined everything together for the final result. What begins as a usual emotionless PR exercise (“I am pleased to share some great news”) quickly turns into very precise legalease (“Pursuant to the Executive Order”) before switching back and forth. If you’ve seen Chew on his TikTok channel, this sounds nothing like him. The update is a legal corporate entity structured to answer questions that have been rattling around Congress in the United States for half a decade. However “pleased” Chew may be, he’s likely more relieved than anything else.

The memo spends 90% of the time outlining exactly what this new entity structure will be like, who owns it, and what it will do. About 8% of the time is spent reassuring TikTok users that the TikTok they know and love will continue to be the TikTok they know and love. The remaining 2% is dedicated to the advertisers on the TikTok platform, the ones who keep the lights on, with a simple message: nothing is changing so you don’t have to go.

So then, who does?

👑 Power Play

Chew joined ByteDance in 2021 as the new CFO, before becoming CEO of TikTok in the same year. He is a well known figure in the tech industry, even walking the coals of testifying to the U.S. Congress, a clear indication of a powerful CEO. He is well loved in his hometown of Singapore, and well admired by others.

In my perspective, Chew was hired initially to prepare TikTok for going public. When that plan fell apart quickly, his number one priority (again, my opinion) was to be the friendly, competent, and non-threatening face of TikTok to stabilise and grow the business in the United States. As most global companies understand, the U.S. is the most important global market.

Now that Chew has technically stabilised the business in the U.S., what will his new role be? It is my opinion that Chew will either be reassigned or leave TikTok in 2026, if not early 2027. The man has, for all intents and purposes, done his job.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Tell me your reasoning. In next week’s issue, I’ll highlight the most thought-provoking responses.

LAST WEEK’S RESPONSES

I will take your word for it kind sir. I haven’t seen Anora.

AND FINALLY…

Thank you for reading Signpost in 2025.

When I started writing Signpost in January this year, I gave myself the task of writing an issue every Friday to publish every Saturday morning at 9am Singapore Time.

I am pleased to share some great news. This is issue number 52 of Signpost this year. Which means I have managed to keep to my goal of writing one issue per week. The real reason I wanted to do so was simply to see if I could do it.

If you’ve been reading since the very beginning, you’ll know that Signpost started differently and now is something (slightly) different. In the ‘old days’ I analysed two different news sources reporting on the same story. My biases were a bit too obvious, and finding different perspectives on the same story was challenging. My analysis often felt incomplete, like I was cherry picking specific articles to validate my opinions. And, it took me way too long to write.

I changed up the structure to analyse only whole texts, that could be analysed in their completeness. But the focus of Signpost remains the same: understanding language in the news, specifically around how shared meaning is built and how that influences power. It’s something that interests me personally. Signpost is my attempt at increasing critical thinking through media literacy. It’s my way of understanding why we do things, through the lens of media and language.

If you managed to read through all 52 issues, Beehiiv tells me you’ve read over 120,000 of my non-ChatGPT written words. Which is apparently almost two novels. Instead, I chose to write this.

I will continue to increase critical thinking through media literacy in the new year. See you in 2026.

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