President Trump announced his preliminary support for a deal for ByteDance to establish a new company in the United States to run TikTok operations. Under the new deal, Oracle and Walmart together will 20% of the newly formed TikTok Global business, which is later expected to complete an IPO on a U.S. exchange.
Highlights of the deal:
- TikTok Global will be responsible for providing all TikTok services to users in United States and most of the users in the rest of the world.
- Oracle qill serve TikTok’s secure cloud provider.
- TikTok Global will be majority owned by American investors, including Oracle and Walmart.
- TikTok Global’s Board of Diretors will consist of five people, four of whom must be Americans.
- All the TikTok technology will be in possession of TikTok Global, and comply with U.S. laws and privacy regulations.
- All American data on TikTok must be quickly moved to Oracle’s Generation 2 Cloud data centers.
- 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 pay more than 5 billion in new tax dollars to the U.S. Treasury.
- TikTok Global, together with Oracle, SIG, General Atlantic, Sequoia, Walmart and Coatue will create an educational initiative to develop and deliver an AI-driven online video curriculum to teach children from inner cities to the suburbs, a variety of courses from basic reading and math to science, history and computer engineering.
It is believed the deal requires clearance from the government of China.