A deal for Oracle and Walmart to acquire stakes in the US operations of popular video app TikTok appeared in jeopardy as details of the complicated arrangement were disputed.
President Donald Trump said on Monday that he would revoke his initial approval of the deal if ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, retained a stake in a newly created company that would house the US operations. The three companies said over the weekend they had struck a deal that gives Oracle and Walmart a combined 20% stake in a new company, TikTok Global, that would provide service to American users and run on Oracle’s cloud computing service.
Everyone seems to have a different understanding of the complex arrangement.
“Everything is going to be moved into a cloud done by Oracle,” the president told Fox News. “It’s going to be totally controlled by Oracle … and if we find that they don’t have total control, then we’re not going to approve the deal.”
The president’s comments came as the partners themselves appeared to have differing interpretations of the deal, which would see the creation of TikTok Global, a US company whose shares would be listed on an American exchange as part of an initial public offering that would take place place “in less than 12 months.”
Over the weekend, ByteDance said it would retain an 80% stake in TikTok Global until an IPO occurred. On Monday morning, an Oracle executive said ByteDance would have no stake in the new company.
“Upon creation of TikTok Global, Oracle/Walmart will make their investment and the TikTok Global shares will be distributed to their owners, Americans will be the majority and ByteDance will have no ownership in TikTok Global,” Ken Glueck, an executive vice president at Oracle said.
The deal, which still requires the approval of the Chinese government, came just hours before a ban on new downloads of TikTok was set to take place. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Saturday that the ban would be pushed out to Sept. 27 at 11:59 p.m.
The tentative agreement and the disputed understanding of it follow a tumultuous period for TikTok, which President Trump has called a national security threat because it’s owned by a Chinese tech company. The administration alleges that the Chinese government could use data gathered by the TikTok app to “track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.” TikTok has repeatedly pushed back, noting that it wouldn’t turn over data to the Chinese government even if it were asked to.
The administration issued two executive orders concerning TikTok. An Aug. 6 order would have barred any US transactions with ByteDance and was set to go into effect this past Sunday. A separate executive order, issued Aug. 14, ordered ByteDance to sell its US operations by Nov. 12. President Trump told reporters on Saturday that he had given his “blessing” to the deal. Aa of Monday morning it seems things have changed once again. Stay tuned for the continuing saga!
September is National Disaster Preparedness Month –
Here are 2 really good tips to help you prepare for — and recover from — natural disasters from the FTC. It seems that they feel that the hurricane season is going on forever too!
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/sites/www.consumer.ftc.gov/files/disaster_recovery_infographic_508.pdf
