President Donald Trump is expect to decide on TikTok’s fate in the US in the next 24 to 36 hours.
Just yesterday, Trump said Wednesday that he isn’t yet ready to sign off on a deal between short-form video app TikTok and technology giant Oracle, saying that he needs to make sure the arrangement addresses national security concerns about the app.
“I’m not prepared to sign off on anything,” Trump told a press briefing at the White House, adding that he expected the deal to be presented to him on Thursday. He emphasized the deal “has to be 100% as far as national security is concerned.”
However, the president is expected to make a decision on the deal in the next 24 to 36 hours, reads a new report from CNBC.
“To address ownership concerns, ByteDance plans to do an initial public offering of global TikTok on a U.S. stock exchange, according to people familiar with the matter,” reads the report. “Oracle will also own a minority stake that will be less than 20% of the new global TikTok, two of the people said. Walmart will also take a stake, though its size is still unknown, according to two of the people.”
It is still not clear if Trump will sign off on the agreement. It was also not immediately clear what assets TikTok Global would own beyond the app’s assets in the United States. It was also not clear whether ByteDance could present the deal to China as keeping majority ownership of TikTok. Chinese officials have said they do not want ByteDance to agree to a forced sale.
TikTok’s future in the US has been in limbo since early this summer after Trump targeted the app over concerns its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, could be forced to give data about American users to the Chinese government. ByteDance says that it keeps user data in the US with a backup in Singapore. The company has said it wouldn’t give data to the Chinese government if asked.
Trump has called for ByteDance to sell TikTok or risk being banned in the US. A deal with Oracle would make the US company the “trusted technology provider” in the US for ByteDance and is designed to address national security concerns.
