TikTok sell-by date suspended as negotiations with the United States continue
A deadline set by the Trump administration for the forced sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets comes and goes on Friday without a final deal, according to people familiar with the talks.
Although the deadline has been extended several times, TikTok is not expected to receive a new one, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the decision is not yet public. TikTok is still in talks with the US government about a sale that addresses the administration’s national security concerns, but Friday’s deadline may expire while talks continue.
The US Treasury Department told TikTok and Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. that they would not face a fine or other sanction for missing the deadline, as the parties are still negotiating. The deal, which has been underway for months, is about to be finalized and the administration is eager to complete it before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan.20, according to one of the people.
The White House declined to comment.
The fate of TikTok, which has been downloaded over 100 million times in the United States, has been overtaken for months by President Donald Trump’s crackdown on Chinese tech companies and their influence in the United States. The administration has argues that US private data collected by the app could be turned over to the authoritarian regime in China, which TikTok said it would never do.
Trump had ordered in August that the app be sold to a U.S. company or be banned in the U.S. But as the presidential election looms in November and now with a new president elected, TikTok appears having slipped off Trump’s agenda.
Trump gave his blessing in mid-September to a preliminary plan in which ByteDance would sell part of TikTok to Oracle Corp., Walmart Inc. and US investors Sequoia Capital, KKR & Co. and General Atlantic, creating a new independent company. called TikTok Global. . But that deal sat in limbo for months and was quickly overshadowed by the U.S. election and rising Covid-19 cases.
ByteDance said its proposal would put the responsibility for moderating data and content for U.S. users on U.S. businesses and investors, a key request from the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, a panel led by the Treasury Department. The Treasury gave ByteDance its last extension a week ago because the ministry said it needed time to review a revised bid.
China will also eventually have to bless the deal. State media have spoken out against Trump’s order, and a Foreign Department spokesperson called it “harassment.”
TikTok has filed multiple challenges against the ban, which are now making their way to court, with deadlines in some cases extending beyond January. Several judges have already blocked the ban from going into effect and the Commerce Department has said it will comply with those court rulings when the government appeals.
Those cases could lapse when Biden takes office in January, unless he decides to enforce Trump’s ban and defend the previous administration’s orders in court.
