No TikTok deal if China's ByteDance maintains control, says Trump
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Trump has claimed TikTok is collecting user data for China's Communist Party, and signed an executive order on August 14 giving ByteDance until September 20 to hand over TikTok's US operations to an American company.
US President Donald Trump on Monday said his administration would not approve the sale of TikTok to Oracle Corp and Walmart Inc if TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance retained any control.
Asked in an interview whether ByteDance would still have any involvement, he said that "they will have nothing to do with it and if they do, then we just won't make the deal."
He added Oracle and Walmart "are going to have total control over it. They're going to own the controling interest... If we find they don't have total control, then we're not going to approve the deal."
TikTok, which became a global phenomenon with its brand of short, addictive phone videos, has come under fire in recent months as tensions escalate between China and the west.
Trump has claimed TikTok is collecting user data for China's Communist Party, and signed an executive order on August 14 giving ByteDance until September 20 to hand over TikTok's US operations to an American company.
ByteDance, under pressure in China not to give in to US demands, set out to clarify "rumours" on Monday after details of the deal were announced. It said the current plan "does not involve the transfer of any algorithms and technologies".
While Oracle has the authority to check the source code of TikTok in the US, ByteDance said displaying the source code is a way for multinationals to allay local data security concerns.