WASHINGTON, Sept 21 — The White House today said an agreement on video platform TikTok’s US business is expected to be signed in the coming days, reported German news agency dpa.
White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt told US broadcaster Fox today that details about TikTok’s future in the United States “have already been agreed upon.”
“Now we just need this deal to be signed and that will be happening, I anticipate, in the coming days,” Leavitt said.
TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, has faced months of uncertainty over the app’s operations in the US, where it has about 170 million users.
US officials have expressed concern that the Chinese government could gain access to vast amounts of personal data and use the platform to exert political influence. TikTok and ByteDance have rejected this.
Leavitt said that, under the deal, TikTok would be “majority-owned by Americans in the United States. There will be seven seats on the board, that controls the app in the United States, and six of those seats will be Americans.”
“The data and privacy will be led by one of America’s greatest tech companies, Oracle, and the algorithm will also be controlled by America as well,” Leavitt continued.
Under a law passed last year, TikTok’s US business was supposed to be sold by ByteDance or taken offline by January 19. Trump granted extensions to the deadline after taking office in January, repeatedly delaying enforcement despite no legal basis for doing so.
In the US, ByteDance — and thus also TikTok — are seen as Chinese companies. ByteDance counters that the company is 60 per cent owned by international investors and is based in the Cayman Islands.
However, ByteDance has a large headquarters in Beijing and is therefore subject to many Chinese regulations. Although its founders hold only a 20 per cent stake, they reportedly retain control through shares with more voting rights.
The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that US investors including Oracle, which is owned by Trump supporter Larry Ellison, and the investment firms Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz were expected to hold 80 per cent of a new US TikTok subsidiary, with the remaining 20 per cent held by Chinese shareholders. — Bernama-dpa
