MOSCOW, Sept. 21 — ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of video-sharing app TikTok, says it will retain an 80-percent stake in the newly created US company TikTok Global, reported Sputnik news agency.
“The board of directors of TikTok Global will include the founder of ByteDance (Zhang Yiming), current ByteDance directors as well as the CEO of Walmart (Doug McMillon),” ByteDance specified in a Monday statement, calling reports of US investors becoming TikTok Global’s majority owners a “rumour.”
According to ByteDance, the parent company will not hand any algorithms or technologies to TikTok Global, but Oracle will be able to conduct security checks on TikTok US’s source code.
On Sunday, ByteDance told the Chinese Global Times newspaper that it was not ruling out inviting more investors on the heels of the agreement with Oracle and Walmart.
TikTok confirmed an agreement with Oracle and Walmart on Saturday, saying that both companies will take part in a TikTok Global pre-IPO financing round in which they can take up to a 20 per cent cumulative stake in the company.
“As part of this proposal, Oracle will become our trusted technology provider, responsible for hosting all US user data and securing associated computer systems to ensure US national security requirements are fully satisfied. We are currently working with Walmart on a commercial partnership as well,” TikTok said in its Saturday statement.
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he had approved the deal. Immediately after the announcement, the US Commerce Department said that it was postponing the planned block of new TikTok downloads until September 27.
