The American division of TikTok will be acquired by a consortium that includes Oracle, venture company Andreessen, and private investment company Silver Lake, as part of an agreement that President Donald Trump plans to discuss with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, writes Bloomberg.
The framework agreement, announced on Monday by senior US and Chinese officials after two days of negotiations in Madrid, provides for the creation of an American version of the popular social networking app.
The deal involves reducing the Chinese ByteDance's stake in TikTok to less than 20%. This will allow the service to continue operating in the USA and comply with national security law requirements.
If the deal is concluded, it will resolve a contentious issue in relations between Beijing and Washington and help determine the fate of China's most valuable private company—a startup valued at $400 billion, whose video product attracted about 170 million primarily young American users before being deemed a national security threat.
Last spring, the US House of Representatives approved a law that would allow TikTok to be blocked in the country if it is not separated from its parent company ByteDance.
US President Donald Trump extended the deadline for the sale of the business several times. On September 16, he stated without specifying details that he has an agreement on the TikTok deal with the Chinese side. Trump plans to discuss the agreement in a phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 19.