President Trump said Monday that he would not approve a deal for Tick tock If its Chinese owner hadn’t fully sold its interest in the product, it would nullify an agreement that was supposed to help the app avoid a federal ban.
When asked for reports from the Chinese owner of TikTok, ByteDancewould still own 80 percent of the service after the deal, Mr Trump said they “would have nothing to do with it, and if they do we just won’t do the deal.”
He said oracle and Walmartwho will take a 20 percent stake in the new company as part of the deal, TikTok Globalwould control the service.
“And if we find that they are not in complete control, we will not approve the deal,” he said during an appearance on Fox and Friends.
His comments came when TikTok denied the ownership structure designed by Oracle and the Trump administration.
A spokesman for TikTok said Sunday that ByteDance would hold 80 percent of the new company until a scheduled public offering for the service on the US exchange would take place in about a year. Oracle and Walmart would hold a 20 percent stake, the spokesman said. ByteDance reiterated that characterization in a statement released Monday for apps in China, saying the deal did not include a carryover of TikTok’s valuable algorithm.
However, on Monday, Oracle denied part of the TikTok description of the deal. Ken Glueck, an executive at the company, said in a statement that after the founding of TikTok Global, Oracle / Walmart will make their investment and distribute TikTok Global shares to their owners, the Americans have a majority and ByteDance no ownership of TikTok Global . “
The back and forth underscores how fluid the deal is staying, and that – despite Mr. Trump’s comments on Saturday that he had given the deal his “blessing” – TikTok still may not address the government’s national security concerns. On Saturday, the trading department postponed a schedule for a week prohibit TikTok from US app stores while the government reviews the transaction. If this does not meet Mr. Trump’s concerns, new downloads from TikTok could be banned in the US.
The Chinese government also released new regulations last month that appear to make it difficult to sell TikTok’s core technology without a license, increasing the chances that Beijing could block a deal.
