

"I can't even think of a precedent where you have a platform with more than 100 million users out there all of a sudden get banned," said CFRA's Zino.
#Tick tock close software#
In 2020, CFIUS also pressured the Chinese owner of Grindr to sell the dating app to a U.S.-based company.īut a move to outright ban a software program would be unprecedented, lawyers and technologists said. It had previously put together a bid for TikTok in 2020, when the Trump administration tried to force a divestiture.ĭuring the Trump administration, the federal government moved to ban network hardware made by Huawei and ZTE, two Chinese telecom gear manufacturers, on national security grounds. U.S.-based Oracle is currently working with TikTok on its efforts to segregate Americans' data to its servers.

Industry analysts told Insider that both Microsoft and Oracle were potential buyers.

That rules out Meta and YouTube, which is owned by Google. She added, "Any acquisition of this size is almost certainly going to raise antitrust concerns. "Any company interested in buying TikTok needs to be very wealthy and have a high enough risk tolerance, because there's a good chance this deal is not going through," Chin said. But the list of suitors for TikTok could be short, with the service likely costing between $40 billion and $100 billion, according to Business Insider, while any deal would likely attract scrutiny from antitrust enforcers. government may be encouraging is for TikTok to spin off from its Beijing parent so it can be acquired by a U.S. But my guess is that for everyone who has it on their phone, it would stop working in various ways," said Kentaro Toyama, a professor at the University of Michigan's School of Information.įCC Commissioner Brendan Carr on whether TikTok could be banned 03:08 Who could buy TikTok? "Everyone who's installed it would still have it. If a ban survived the lawsuits, it would most likely result in Apple and Google, who run the vast majority of smartphones in the U.S., removing TikTok from their app stores and turning off app updates. One law and technology expert said any TikTok ban wouldn't kick in immediately, since the video platform and some users would likely challenge it in court. Commerce Secretary to ban foreign technology companies, as well as encourages the intelligence service to declassify information on potential risks. The RESTRICT Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate this month, allows the U.S. However, China pushed back against this possibility Thursday, with a government spokesperson saying "China will firmly oppose" any forced sale of the app. subsidiary or sell it to an American company, CBS News has confirmed. Walmart has confirmed its interest in the app, saying that it envisions TikTok providing it “with an important way for us to reach and serve omnichannel customers as well as grow our third-party marketplace and advertising business.The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews transactions that could affect national security, has been pressuring ByteDance to spin off its U.S. TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer quit his post on Thursday after reportedly being left out of sale negotiations with both Microsoft and Oracle. “As any responsible company would do, we are simultaneously developing plans to try to ensure that our US employees continue to get paid in any outcome,” they said. TikTok has already implemented a hiring freeze in the US for most open positions due to the uncertainty surrounding its future, according to the report.īyteDance doesn’t anticipate needing to pull the kill-switch, however, and a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that the company is “confident that we will reach a resolution that ensures TikTok is here for the long run.” The Chinese company is also making separate plans for TikTok’s American employees and vendors to be compensated in the event that the app is banned. Though TikTok’s parent, Beijing-based ByteDance, is reportedly on the cusp of reaching a deal with Microsoft and Walmart, it told engineers in a memo to draw up contingency plans to kill the mega-popular video platform, according to Reuters. President Trump signed an executive order earlier this month ordering ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US business to a “very American company” or be banned from operating in the country. TikTok’s parent company is getting ready to shut down its American operations in the event that a sale doesn’t materialize in the next few months, according to a report. This summer's 'it' bag? A polyester carry-on that fits everything I served my country in the Air Force - now I serve beers in a bikiniĬhef who makes $2K pizzas and $1K nachos for celebs started out as parody 'New York's finest' cop has fans begging to be locked up
