Last Friday (19th), US President Trump stated that China and the United States were closer to reaching a final agreement on the sale of TikTok, a short video-sharing platform, to American investors. The White House spokesman for the United States, Caroline Leavitt, expects that a final agreement between China and the United States on the TikTok deal will be signed within days.
Levitte revealed that six of TikTok ‘ s seven newest board members would be United States seats, all with national and cyber security qualifications. She noted that the remaining Board member would be appointed by TikTok ‘ s parent by byte, except that the member would be excluded from the security committee of TikTok; and that TikTok ‘ s application algorithm would be controlled by the United States.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) quoted information that, as a result of a transaction by the United States Government that facilitated TikTok, TikTok ‘ s investors had to pay the United States Government for TikTok ‘ s transaction. Investment banks generally receive a percentage of less than 1 per cent of the value of the transaction in return for facilitating an enterprise transaction agreement.
The report mentions that, as TikTok ‘ s transactions are still at the negotiation stage, the scale of the costs has not yet been finalized, but the opportunity to reach billions of dollars is estimated. Trump threatened last Friday that the federal Government could charge a fee for the TikTok deal, stating that the United States Government should be compensated for its efforts to reach an agreement.
Among the new United States investors to TikTok are Oracle, Silver Lake, a private United States fund, and Andressen Horowitz, an American venture. Together with TikTok ‘ s parent, byte beats existing investors, including Susquehanna International, KKR and General Atlantic, they will jointly hold 80 per cent of TikTok ‘ s shares and the remaining 20 per cent will be held by by byte.