Measure is to avoid ban in the country; agreement is expected to be signed on January 22nd and has up to 120 days for command transaction
The Chinese platform signed an agreement to sell operations in to investors. According to information released by Reuters, based on the American news website Axios, ByteDance will sell 80% of its operations to the companies Oracle, Silves Lake and MGX, based in Abu Dhabi. They will form a social network group called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. Another 30.1% of TikTok USDS will be from affiliates of certain existing ByteDance investors and 19.9% will remain with the Chinese company.
The agreement, which should be closed on January 22, puts an end between the United States and the short video platform, which was threatened with ceasing to operate on North American soil. The command transaction must be completed within 120 days after the deal is closed.
In 2024, a law was passed in the United States that forced ByteDance to sell control of the platform’s operation in the country so that it could continue to operate. The platform owner had until December 16th, last Tuesday, to complete the sale. The deadline had already been postponed three times. The reason for transferring command of TikTok was so that the Chinese government would not have access to any data from American users.
ByteDance denies that it has links with the Chinese government, and says that user data is stored on Oracle servers – one of the companies that, if the sale is confirmed, will be one of the administrators. Despite suspicions about the data, Donald Trump, president of the United States, has more than 15 million followers on the platform, and says that it helped him win the elections. The White House also recently opened an account on the social network.
