By November 30, 2025, the core of Chamath’s prediction has effectively come true, even though some details (exact price, ownership mix) differ:

1. Forced divestiture driven by U.S. law and politics
   In 2024 Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which explicitly targeted TikTok and required ByteDance to execute a “qualified divestiture” of TikTok’s U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban. The U.S. Supreme Court later upheld this sale‑or‑ban framework, confirming that continued Chinese control would make the app illegal to distribute in the U.S.(en.wikipedia.org) On September 25, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order approving a specific divestiture plan and temporarily pausing enforcement of the ban to allow the transaction to close.(whitehouse.gov) This is consistent with Chamath’s claim that ByteDance would be forced by U.S. regulatory and political pressure into a sale.

2. Sale to a U.S.-led investment consortium with private equity at the center
   The approved deal transfers control of TikTok’s U.S. operations to a new U.S.-based joint venture that will be majority-owned and controlled by U.S. investors; ByteDance is expected to retain <20%.(whitehouse.gov) Reporting describes the buyer as a consortium led by Oracle and the private‑equity firm Silver Lake, alongside other investors (Andreessen Horowitz, existing U.S. ByteDance investors, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX).(reuters.com) While not exclusively “a U.S-owned private equity consortium” (there is a large strategic buyer and some non‑U.S. money), it is in substance a U.S.-led investment consortium with major private‑equity participation, which is directionally what he described.

3. Valuation: heavily discounted and in the same rough magnitude he forecast
   Multiple reports put the agreed valuation for TikTok’s U.S. entity at about $14 billion.(ft.com) That is “on the order of” (same one‑digit‑tens‑of‑billions range as) the ~$10B number Chamath threw out, even if not exact.

   By contrast, ByteDance has recently been valued in private markets in the $300–400+ billion range, with TikTok’s U.S. business generating about $27B of revenue in 2024 (around 17% of total).(sacra.com) A mature, high‑growth social media business doing tens of billions of revenue being valued at only ~$14B for its U.S. arm is a very steep discount relative to normal tech multiples and to earlier expectations for TikTok, matching his claim that the equity value would be “so impaired.”

4. ByteDance’s lack of practical choice
   Under the statute and the Supreme Court’s reading, TikTok faces a ban in the U.S. if ByteDance does not complete a qualified divestiture; the executive order explicitly treats the divestiture plan as the path to avoid that ban.(en.wikipedia.org) Given the ban‑or‑sell structure and TikTok’s reliance on the U.S. market, ByteDance has little realistic option other than accepting a U.S.-controlled deal on the terms regulators and buyers will tolerate, which aligns with Chamath’s argument that they would “have to take it.”

Why this is graded as “right” overall:

• The mechanism (regulatory/political pressure forcing a sale of TikTok’s U.S. business) happened almost exactly as he envisioned.
• The counterparty structure (U.S.-led consortium with major private‑equity involvement) is directionally correct, even if not purely PE and not 100% U.S.-owned.
• The economics (deeply impaired valuation in the low‑tens‑of‑billions, versus much higher prior expectations) are substantially in line with his “roughly $10B” call.

Because the central thesis—“TikTok US will be forced into a fire‑sale style divestiture to a U.S. investment consortium under political pressure”—has materialized, and the numerical/structural deviations are moderate rather than fundamental, the prediction is best classified as right.