What is TikTok’s stock price, and is it publicly traded? Investors cannot purchase shares of TikTok stock because it is a private company owned by ByteDance. Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META), aka Facebook, is a social media company that traders can invest in.
There are no current plans for a TikTok Stock IPO.
TikTok Stock at a Glance
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is TikTok publicly traded? | No |
| TikTok stock symbol | None |
| TikTok stock price | No public market price |
| TikTok parent company | ByteDance |
| Is ByteDance public? | No |
| Can retail investors buy TikTok stock? | Not from a public broker |
| TikTok IPO announced? | No confirmed public IPO |
TikTok Company Overview
Let’s dive deeply into TikTok and the Stock Market, discuss how to purchase TikTok stock, and discover who owns TikTok. Is there a TikTok stock price?
The 2020 pandemic caused TikTok to explode in users. Everyone was home, so social media became a bigger part of our lives. Everywhere you turn, you see TikTok videos, even on other platforms.
I would never think the world needed another social media app, but I was wrong. This ticking time bomb exploded onto the market in 2017 after being launched by Chinese startup ByteDance. There is no TikTok stock symbol nor a publicly traded stock for ByteDance…yet!
TikTok became the most downloaded app in the US in October 2018, making it the first Chinese app in history to achieve this.
In its most basic form, TikTok is a video-sharing social media app.
Besides adding effects like filters, background music, and stickers to their videos, users can also collaborate from different locations across the globe.
U.S. Ownership
On January 23, 2026, TikTok officially announced the formation of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. According to TikTok, Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX each hold 15%, ByteDance retains 19.9%, and other investors hold the remainder.
So if TikTok’s ownership changed, can I buy TikTok stock? The answer is still no. The company isn’t publicly traded.
Social Media Companies Competing With TikTok
| Symbol | Name |
|---|---|
| SNAP | SnapChat |
| META | Meta Platforms (Facebook) |
| GOOGL | |
| PINS |
YouTube
Your dream has come true for anyone who has ever dreamed of creating duets with their loved ones across the globe. As ridiculous as this sounds, the app is extremely addictive and shows with its high levels of engagement. Also, unlike many apps, TikTok feels more like YouTube in the early 2000s. There is a lot of freedom, experimentation, and the ability to use content from the public domain without the fear of copyright infringement. But that appears to be changing as it becomes more popular.
This is undoubtedly one of the world’s most popular social media apps. Even more impressive is that it’s available in over 150 different markets and 75 languages.
As of March 2020, the app hit close to two billion downloads. Not to mention the 104.7 million downloads in January 2020 alone.
The biggest difference between TikTok and Vine is the timing; TikTok became popular when people were already using Facebook and Instagram stories to share content, which has a very similar format to TikTok and Vine’s. Read on to analyze whether TikTok threatens social media behemoth Facebook and if there’s a TikTok stock.
Meta Platforms
Facebook is currently one of the world’s largest online social networks, with billions of monthly active users. How its users engage is much different than TikTok in that they exchange messages and share news events, photos, and videos.
The firm’s ecosystem consists mainly of the Facebook app, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and many features surrounding these products. And there are so many deep things going on with Facebook. You can buy and sell, date, write blogs, grow fan pages, build groups…the list goes on.
Don’t despair if you can’t invest in some of your favorite apps. PINS and SNAP are two more social media apps you can trade today on the US stock market. You may not be able to trade TikTok stock, but you can trade $META.
TikTok Stock a Facebook Threat
Did you know that TikTok was the third most downloaded app, falling just behind WhatsApp and Messenger? Shockingly, it was downloaded more than Facebook and Instagram. Wow!
While there is no TikTok stock price, Facebook makes a great trading stock. It’s highly liquid and volatile. As a result, you can make (and lose) money with Facebook stock.
Facebook is one of the largest and most popular social media apps you can invest in now.
What Makes ByteDance Special?
More interestingly, this Internet start-up giant uses Artificial Intelligence to claim its foothold in the global social media networks of the world.
ByteDance’s flagship product, Toutiao, is China’s largest AI-powered content platform. At a glance, Toutiao delivers personalized content recommendations to every user based on their interests.
ByteDance may become the first Chinese company to use AI to profit from social media use in the Western part of the world.
ByteDance Stock IPO
ByteDance Stock is not publicly traded on any stock exchange because they are a privately held company. There are no current plans for a ByteDance Stock IPO.
Now, to answer the million-dollar question: How can I buy shares of TikTok stock and ByteDance? Unfortunately, you can’t. Since TikTok and ByteDance are privately owned, their shares aren’t publicly traded. Yet. Someone like you and I can’t buy one single share of a privately owned company until and unless they offer an IPO (Initial Public Offering).
This leads me to the next obvious burning question…
Final Thoughts on TikTok Stock
You cannot buy TikTok stock directly because TikTok does not have a publicly traded stock symbol. ByteDance also remains privately held.
The situation in the United States changed significantly in 2026 with the establishment of TikTok USDS Joint Venture, but that did not create a publicly traded TikTok stock for retail investors.
If you want exposure to publicly traded social media companies instead, Meta, Alphabet, Snap, and Pinterest are alternatives worth researching. As always, understand the company, chart, and risk before making your own trading decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
TikTok is privately held, and it doesn’t have a stock symbol.
TikTok doesn’t offer a stock symbol to trade because it is a privately held company.
It would be up to the company if they would consider doing an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
