President Donald Trump says that he will not give extra time to TikTok’s owner, China-based ByteDance, to sell off its US-based assets. “We"ll see what happens. It"ll either be closed up or they"ll sell it,” the president said.
Trump had signed an executive order that bans transactions with the parent companies of TikTok and WeChat, ByteDance and Tencent Holdings Ltd. The order was to come into effect after 45 days from signing. The deadline is September 20th. This means that the China-based ByteDance has only 9 days to finalize a deal otherwise it will face a complete ban. The famous short-video sharing app has an estimated US user base of 80 million.
TikTok has been under fire over suspicions that China could at any time force the company to hand over its user data. “We have never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked.” a TikTok spokesman said.
According to Bloomberg, TikTok has ran into complications with American firms, including Microsoft and Oracle, who are willing to buy the popular short-video sharing app, as ByteDance will have to comply with ‘approval procedures’ when it comes time to sell its U.S. TikTok operations.
Source: Reuters