Douyin was launched on September 20, 2016, by ByteDance, originally under the name A.me, before changing its name to Douyin (抖音) in December 2016.[25][26] Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.[27][28]

While TikTok and Douyin share a similar user interface, the platforms operate separately.[29][4][30] Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people's faces for more videos of them, along with other features such as buying, booking hotels, and making geo-tagged reviews.[31]

ByteDance planned on Douyin expanding overseas. The founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, stated that "China is home to only one-fifth of Internet users globally. If we don't expand on a global scale, we are bound to lose to peers eyeing the four-fifths. So, going global is a must."[32]

ByteDance created TikTok as an overseas version of Douyin. TikTok was launched in the international market in September 2017.[33] On 9 November 2017, ByteDance spent nearly $1 billion to purchase Musical.ly, a startup headquartered in Shanghai with an overseas office in Santa Monica, California.[34][35] Musical.ly was a social media video platform that allowed users to create short lip-sync and comedy videos, initially released in August 2014. TikTok merged with Musical.ly on 2 August 2018 with existing accounts and data consolidated into one app, keeping the title TikTok.[36][35][37][38]

On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked first among free application downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries.[39] TikTok has been downloaded more than 130 million times in the United States and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide,[7] according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower (those numbers exclude Android users in China).[40]

In the United States, Jimmy Fallon, Tony Hawk, and other celebrities began using the app in 2018.[41][42] Other celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Will Smith, and Justin Bieber joined TikTok.[43] In January 2019, TikTok allowed creators to embed merchandise sale links into their videos.[44] On 3 September 2019, TikTok and the U.S. National Football League (NFL) announced a multi-year partnership.[45] The agreement came just two days before the NFL's 100th season kick-off at Soldier Field in Chicago where TikTok hosted activities for fans in honor of the deal. The partnership entails the launch of an official NFL TikTok account, which is to bring about new marketing opportunities such as sponsored videos and hashtag challenges. In July 2020, TikTok, excluding Douyin, reported close to 800 million monthly active users worldwide after less than four years of existence.[46]

In May 2021, TikTok appointed Shou Zi Chew as their new CEO[47] who assumed the position from interim CEO Vanessa Pappas, following the resignation of Kevin A. Mayer on 27 August 2020.[48][49][50] In September 2021, TikTok reported that it had reached 1 billion users.[51] In 2021, TikTok earned $4 billion in advertising revenue.[52]

In October 2022, TikTok was reported to be planning an expansion into the e-commerce market in the US, following the launch of TikTok Shop in the United Kingdom. The company posted job listings for staff for a series of order fulfillment centers in the U.S. and is reportedly planning to start the new live shopping business before the end of the year.[53] The Financial Times reported that TikTok will launch a video gaming channel, but the report was denied in a statement to Digiday, with TikTok instead aiming to be a social hub for the gaming community.[54][55] According to data from app analytics group Sensor Tower, advertising on TikTok in the U.S. grew by 11% in March 2023, with companies including Pepsi, DoorDash, Amazon, and Apple among the top spenders. According to estimates from research group Insider Intelligence, TikTok is projected to generate $14.15 billion in revenue in 2023, up from $9.89 billion in 2022.[56] In March 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that TikTok's growth in the U.S. had stagnated.[57]

Since at least 2020, following calls to ban TikTok in the country, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has been investigating the company's 2017 merger with Musical.ly but has not finalized any of its negotiations with TikTok, such as the Project Texas proposal, waiting instead for Congress to act.[58]

In January 2025, Chinese officials began preliminary talks about potentially selling TikTok's U.S. operations to Elon Musk if the app faced an impending ban due to national security concerns. While Beijing preferred TikTok remain under ByteDance's control, the sale could happen through a competitive process or with U.S. government involvement. One possibility involved Musk's platform, X, taking over TikTok's U.S. business. The move came ahead of a Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of a law that would force a sale or ban of TikTok in the U.S. by 19 January 2025, due to national security concerns regarding its ties to China.[59][60] Other potential buyers included Project Liberty's "The People's Bid For TikTok" consortium[61] of billionaire real estate mogul Frank McCourt with Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary; former Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin; YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)[62] and former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick; the seriousness of these potential buyers was unclear.[63] The day before the impending ban, California-based conversational search engine company Perplexity AI submitted a bid for a merger with TikTok US.[64][65][66][67]

On September 14, 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported the US and China have reached the "framework of a deal" for the US operations of TikTok to be sold to a consortium of investors in the US including Larry Ellison of Oracle.[68] The deal is expected to be confirmed by President Trump and Party Chair Xi Jinping and was part of broader tariff discussions.[69]

TikTok was downloaded over 104 million times on Apple's App Store during the first half of 2018, according to data provided to CNBC by Sensor Tower.[70]

After merging with musical.ly in August, downloads increased and TikTok became the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018, which musical.ly had done once before.[27] In February 2019, TikTok, together with Douyin, hit one billion downloads globally, excluding Android installs in China.[71] In 2019, media outlets cited TikTok as the 7th-most-downloaded mobile app of the decade, from 2010 to 2019.[72] It was also the most-downloaded app on Apple's App Store in 2018 and 2019, surpassing Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.[70][73] In September 2020, a deal was confirmed between ByteDance and Oracle in which the latter will serve as a partner to provide cloud hosting.[74][75] In November 2020, TikTok signed a licensing deal with Sony Music.[76] In December 2020, Warner Music Group signed a licensing deal with TikTok.[77][78]

The advertising revenue of short video clips is lower than other social media: while users spend more time, American audience is monetized at a rate of $0.31 per hour, a third the rate of Facebook and a fifth the rate of Instagram, $67 per year while Instagram will make more than $200.[79] In July 2023, Iranian Mehr News Agency reported "experts from Douyin" will meet Iranian business in Tehran to enable Iranian exports to China.[80]

In 2023, several high-level executives transferred from ByteDance to TikTok to focus on moneymaking operations. Some moved from Beijing to the US. According to sources for The Wall Street Journal, the personnel move led to concerns from some TikTok employees and was reported to the office of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz for further investigation.[81][82] In December 2023, TikTok invested $1.5 billion in GoTo's Indonesian e-commerce business, Tokopedia.[83] In March 2024, The Information reported that it is an open secret among investors that TikTok loses billions of dollars annually.[84]

Although the size of its user base falls short of that of Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, TikTok reached 1 billion active monthly users faster than any of them.[85] Competition from TikTok prompted Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, to spend $120 million as of 2022 to entice more content creators to its Reels service, although engagement level remained low.[86] Snapchat had likewise paid out $250 million in 2021 to its creators.[87] Many platforms and services, including YouTube Shorts, began to imitate TikTok's format and recommendation page. Those changes caused a backlash from users of Instagram, Spotify, and Twitter.[85]

In March 2022, The Washington Post reported that Facebook's owner Meta Platforms paid Targeted Victory—a consulting firm backed by supporters of the U.S. Republican Party—to coordinate lobbying and media campaigns against TikTok and portray it as "a danger to American children and society". Its efforts included asking local reporters to serve as "back channels" of anti-TikTok messages, writing opinion articles and letters to the editor, including one in the name of a concerned parent, amplifying stories about TikTok trends, such as "devious licks" and "Slap a Teacher", that actually originated on Facebook, and promoting Facebook's own corporate initiatives. Ties to Meta were not disclosed to the other parties involved. Targeted Victory said that it is "proud of the work". A Meta spokesperson said that all platforms, including TikTok, should face scrutiny.[88]

The Wall Street Journal reported that Silicon Valley executives met with U.S. lawmakers to build an "anti-China alliance" before TikTok CEO's congressional hearing in March 2023.[89][90]

In April 2024, TikTok users started receiving notifications that their current and future picture posts would be shown on a new app called TikTok Notes. The app is not released yet; however, TikTok confirmed it is being worked on. TikTok Notes will be a direct competitor to Instagram for photo sharing. Jasmine Enberg, a principal social media analyst at eMarketer, observes that launching Notes as a separate app, instead of as a new feature in TikTok, may be done in response to regulatory and consumer scrutiny.[91][92] On 18 April 2024, Notes first released to users in Canada and Australia for limited testing.[93] On 1 April 2025, it was announced that Notes would be shut down on 8 May.[94] It went defunct on May 8, 2025.