the situation with the ban on the territory of the United States of Chinese social networks TikTok gets more confusing. According to sources Reuters, the Chinese company ByteDance decided to abandon operations TikTok in the United States.
According to the new proposed company transaction, ByteDance will completely cease operations in the United States, and Microsoft Corp will acquire its U.S. subsidiary. Under the agreement, Microsoft, which also owns the professional network LinkedIn, will be responsible for the protection of all user data TikTok in the United States, the sources said.
the Deal, experts say, is estimated at $ 50 billion, but some managers ByteDance think the app is much more expensive. Earlier ByteDance was estimated at $ 140 billion, before one of its shareholders, Cheetah Mobile, has sold its small stake in the company. Among the investors of a startup is a Japanese banking group dedicated to investment in the sphere of high technologies. At the same time, according to experts, about 70 percent of the holders of shares of the company are Americans.
TikTok is one of the most significant foreign competition for U.S. social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook. In 2017 ByteDance acquired Shanghai video app Musical.ly a billion dollars. The following year, she relaunched it under the name TikTok. With this application you can create short videos. Last year the company said that about 60 percent of its active users in the U.S. are young people aged 16 to 24 years. He TikTok is not available in China, and Chinese users instead use Douyin, a similar app owned by ByteDance.
Recall that the scandal against the social network gained momentum after President Donald trump said that he had decided to ban the Chinese app. In the American administration believe that it can be used in the interests of Beijing. “As for TikTok, we prohibit it in the United States – said the head of the White house reporters on Board the presidential plane Air Force One. – We are not a country mergers and acquisitions. Representatives of TikTok in the United States in response said that the network is in America, “in the long term”. “We are not going to go anywhere,” – said in a video message, the General Director of the branch ByteDance in the United States, Vanessa Pappas, thanking supporters for their support. Official Beijing refrained from comment.
TikTok got in the development CFIUS, the United States government Agency, responsible for ensuring that foreign investment does not pose a threat to national security, said the Fox News channel. In 2018, CFIUS forced the Chinese Ant Financial to abandon plans for the purchase of MoneyGram International Inc, due to concerns regarding data security that would identify US citizens.
Analysts do not exclude the possibility that the White house is simply trying to oust the Chinese company with a lucrative high-tech market in the United States. Even before the ultimatum to trump some American media suggested that the White house simply forcing the Chinese company to sell its business in America, thus bringing its trade war with Beijing on a completely different level. ByteDance intends to check whether the threat is trump to forbid TikTok tactics of negotiation, or he intends to “deal” with the app for social networks that can boast that it has 100 million users in the United States. For their part, representatives of the American civil liberties Union (ACLU), said that banning apps in the US would be a “threat to freedom of speech and technically inexpedient”.
Late on Saturday evening, the first of August, Peter Navarro, the Director of the Department of trade and industrial policy of the White house, told Fox News that trump will make the final decision on the prohibition of TikTok Sunday or Monday.
