TikTok owner ByteDance plans $6B buyback, report says

ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, plans to buy back up to $6 billion of shares from existing investors at a valuation of about $400 billion. The Information reported the plan on Thursday, November 12, citing a letter to shareholders and a person familiar with it. The publication said the price is 20% higher than the valuation used in ByteDance's last buyback a year ago. If the deal goes ahead, it would be one of the clearest signs yet of how much investors think the privately held company is worth after a year in which its U.S. future was largely settled.theinformation.com

Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report. ByteDance has not commented publicly, according to APACrealty, which also noted that the report gave no timeline for the repurchase and did not say which investors might take part.reuters.com+1

A steady climb in valuation

ByteDance regularly buys back shares, which lets holders of the unlisted company cash out some of their stakes. In August 2025, Reuters reported that the company was preparing an employee buyback that valued it at more than $330 billion. That program offered $200.41 per share, up 5.5% from the $189.90 offered about six months earlier, when the valuation was roughly $315 billion. Reuters said at the time that ByteDance had become the world's largest social media company by revenue, with second-quarter revenue up 25% from a year earlier.reuters.com

Some outside investors had already valued the company above its own figures. Yahoo Finance reported in September 2025 that Fidelity had marked ByteDance at more than $385 billion at the end of July that year. CNBC reported around the same time that a private share placement agent said holders were unwilling to sell. The agent said "no one wants to let go of their investment in ByteDance now."cnbc.com+1

The TikTok deal in the background

The higher valuation comes after ByteDance resolved the threat of a U.S. ban on TikTok. On January 22, the company finalized a deal creating a majority American-owned joint venture, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, to run the app in the United States, according to Reuters. Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX each hold 15%, and ByteDance keeps 19.9%, TikTok's newsroom said.reuters.com+1

According to Caixin, existing ByteDance shareholders hold another 30.1% of the venture. TikTok's other U.S. entities, which handle e-commerce, advertising and interoperability with the global product, remain wholly owned by ByteDance. Earlier this month, a Justice Department legal opinion described ByteDance as a minority shareholder that "lacks voting power" to change the venture's security protocols.justice.gov+1