Donald Trump has said that Oracle and Walmart “are going to have full control of it (TikTok)”.
Washington:
On Monday, President Donald Trump questioned a deal to restructure the ownership of popular video app TikTok, promising to block any deal allowing its Chinese parent company to retain all control.
The comments raised new concerns about a weekend deal that appeared to avoid a US-ordered ban on TikTok, which the Trump administration has called a national security risk.
The deal would make Silicon Valley giant Oracle the data partner for TikTok, with retail giant Walmart also taking a stake in a new entity called TikTok Global.
But details of the plan remained unclear, amid divergent accounts on the new company’s U.S. and Chinese stocks, and who would control the data and algorithms.
Trump told Fox News on Monday that TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance “will have nothing to do with this and if they do, we just won’t get the deal done.”
He added that Oracle and Walmart “are going to have full control over this. They are going to have the controlling stake …. If we find that they don’t have full control, then we won’t approve the deal. “
ByteDance, under pressure in China not to bow to U.S. demands, said it would hold an 80% stake in TikTok Global after a public offering of shares.
The Chinese firm said the current plan “does not involve the transfer of any algorithms and technology” and that reports to the contrary were “rumors”.
A separate statement from Oracle provided a different view of the transaction.
“When establishing TikTok Global, Oracle / Walmart will make its investment and shares of TikTok Global will be distributed to their owners, Americans will have a majority and ByteDance will have no ownership in TikTok Global,” said the vice president of ‘Oracle Ken Glueck.
TikTok – which has become a global phenomenon with its brand of short, addicting phone videos – has come under fire in recent months as tensions escalate between China and the West.
Trump has increasingly placed national security and his aggressive stance on China at the center of his campaign, claiming without providing evidence that TikTok collects data on Beijing users.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
