TikTok users in the U.S. got a one-week reprieve from the Trump administration’s download ban on the popular short-form video app.
The announcement of the postponement of the ban came after President Trump gave his “blessing” to a multiparty deal under which TikTok will become majority-owned by a group of U.S. companies and investors: Oracle and Walmart, which together will take a 20% stake, along with American investment firms Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, and Coatue Management.
Given the president’s approval of the TikTok pact, the U.S. Commerce Department said it has pushed back the ban on app stores providing access to the until next Sunday, Sept. 27.
The new TikTok Global will “pay more than $5 billion in new tax dollars to the U.S. Treasury,” according to an Oracle statement. It’s unclear if that will be a one-time payment or be part of the new company’s regular course of business.
The Commerce Department announced Saturday evening, “In light of recent positive developments, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, at the direction of President Trump, will delay the prohibition of identified transactions pursuant to Executive Order 13942, related to the TikTok mobile application that would have been effective on Sunday, September 20, 2020, until September 27, 2020 at 11:59 p.m.”
TikTok late Friday had filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary order to block the ban.
The deal, involving Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, still requires approval by the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, The U.S.’s total ban of WeChat, owned by Chinese internet giant Tencent, remains in effective for midnight ET Sunday, Sept. 20. WeChat users (unaffiliated with Tencent) were awaiting a San Francisco federal court ruling on a request seeking an emergency stay of the order.
Oracle said that all TikTok technology will be in possession of TikTok Global, which will “comply with U.S. laws and privacy regulations.”
“Data privacy for 100 million American TikTok users will be quickly established by moving all American data to Oracle’s Generation 2 Cloud data centers, the most secure cloud data centers in the world,” Oracle said. In addition to its equity stake, Walmart will bring its “omni-channel retail capabilities including its Walmart.com assortment, ecommerce marketplace, fulfillment, payment and measurement-as-a-service advertising service.”
TikTok Global will launch an initial public offering within 12 months and be listed on a U.S. stock exchange.
In a blog post Saturday, TikTok interim head Vanessa Pappas wrote, “We’re pleased that today we’ve confirmed a proposal that resolves the [Trump] Administration’s security concerns and settles questions around TikTok’s future in the U.S.”