China's ByteDance To Hold Less Than 20% Of US TikTok, Says Official
US President Donald Trump will extend the pause on TikTok ban by another 20 days, the official said.
ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese owner of short-video streaming platform TikTok, will hold only 20% of the company's US-based entity, an American official was reported as saying by Bloomberg on Monday.
US President Donald Trump will extend the pause on the TikTok ban by another 20 days, the official said, suggesting that the deal is expected to be finalised in the next few days.
The official added that the deal will come into effect 120 days after signing. While the deal is nearing finality, the valuation for TikTok has not been finalised. Additionally, the officials said that the deal will likely be in the billions of dollars.
Officials have confirmed that Trump will sign an executive order approving the deal next week. The executive order will approve a deal to sell the US operations of TikTok to a group of investors.
They further added that the TikTok will be operated by a US entity, and the consortium will consist of US and global investors. They also showed confidence that China will approve the TikTok deal. The officials clarified that the US will not take any equity stake in the TikTok. There will be no "golden share" and no US-government selected board member on the entity.
The officials have also added that Oracle Corp. will study the algorithm. ByteDance will lead a copy of its algorithm to the US and Oracle will retrain it in the US. The tech company will recreate and provide security for a new US version of the app to sell the popular Chinese-owned app to a consortium of US investors.
It further said that the data from the US will be stored in a secure cloud managed by Oracle, and the Chinese parent won't have access to it nor would it have any control over the algorithm in the US.
