The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the deal Microsoft and ByteDance were pitching as how to stay TikTok running as a U.S. company here within the states is on hold. the rationale given is that both parties are now a touch shaken by Trump’s statements late last night about not allowing such a deal to travel through and being bent a ban.
They are now ‘looking for clarity’ on the White House position on such a deal. We’re looking into it with Microsoft and ByteDance except for now we haven’t heard that anything material is different here — the deal was always contingent tacit, if not explicit, approval from the administration. we’ll update if we hear more. The original story follows.
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China’s ByteDance has agreed to divest its TikTok operations within the US, consistent with a report in Reuters. Under the deal, Microsoft would take over stewardship of the info of U.S.-based users. The deal allows another company besides Microsoft to work TikTok within us. this is able to allow the service to still operate within us, sidestepping the alleged executive order threatened by President Trump.
Allegedly, ByteDance had previously sought a deal that might allow the corporate to retain a minority stake within the company. That plan was seemingly recently abandoned after the White House rejected the proposal.
Under this new deal, Microsoft would be responsible for protecting U.S.-based users’ data, and another U.S.-based company would be allowed to work TikTok.
It’s unclear if this deal would be enough to permit TikTok to still operate within us.
Microsoft and therefore the White House didn’t answer an invitation for comment.
This news comes hours after President Trump told reporters that he was getting to sign an executive order banning the Chinese-owned app from operating within us. In response, ByteDance issued the subsequent statement, which we initially reported here.
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“100 million Americans come to Tik-Tok for entertainment and connection, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve hired nearly 1,000 people to our US TikTok office team this year alone, and are proud to be hiring another 10,000 employees into great paying jobs across the US.
Our $1 billion creator fund supports US creators who are raising income from our platform. TikTok US user data is stored within the US, with strict controls on employee access. TikTok’s biggest investors come from the US. We are pledged to protecting our user’s data ‘privacy and safety’ as we continue working to bring joy to families and meaningful careers to those that create on our platform,” said a TikTok spokesperson.
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