With the Chinese government having thrown
another wrench in the works by restricting exports of artificial-intelligence technology, TikTok parent ByteDance is talking with U.S. government officials about possible ways to avoid a full sale of
TikTok’s U.S. operations, according to Wall Street Journalsources.
President Donald Trump’s August 14 executive
order gave ByteDance until November 12 to sell the operations to a U.S. business, or be banned in this country.
ByteDance reportedly has been in talks with Oracle, as well as Microsoft,
which has now teamed with Walmart on its acquisition bid.
But clinching a sale under extraordinary time pressure has become even more difficult since China late last month implemented
new restrictions on exports of AI tech — raising questions about whether an acquisition would include TikTok’s all-important algorithms.
“Even if there isn’t a
full sale, the outcome would likely involve some sort of restructuring of TikTok,” WSJ writes, citing one of its sources. “That could involve a deal in which TikTok takes on a
U.S. technology partner that helps secure its data and potentially takes a minority stake.”
It isn’t clear whether Trump would accept a partial sale under any circumstances.
The specifics of China’s stance also remain unclear.