Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump had approved the deal. “It will be a whole new company. They will have nothing to do with China anymore. I have approved the agreement. If it materializes, so much the better. That will not happen, well,” Trump said.
It is not yet clear what the possible agreement between TikTok, software group Oracle and supermarket chain Walmart would look like. Oracle would become the technology partner in the US and Walmart the commercial partner. According to Trump, the new company, which would be called TikTok Global, will employ “at least 25,000 people.” The headquarters would be in Texas. The companies involved would also donate 5 billion euros to American education, Trump said.
It is still unclear to what extent the Chinese government has yet to agree to the deal. Beijing has previously torpedoed a direct sale of TikTok’s US activities to software group Microsoft. The Chinese regime introduced a new rule that states that software algorithms can only be sold abroad with the permission of the authorities.
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