The US government plan to force the sale of TikTok’s American operations to a group including Oracle and Walmart has been shelved indefinitely, people familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal. The new government under President Joe Biden is still developing its policy on China and will reassess whether the TikTok divestment is necessary.
The TikTok deal was struck last fall after the previous administration deemed the app a potential security risk. However, it was never completed, due to successful legal challenges by TikTok’s owner, China-based ByteDance.
In the latest development, the Biden administration asked to delay the government’s appeal of a federal district court judge’s December injunction against the TikTok ban. The government said it had begun a review of the agency action that would help it determine whether the national security threat cited by the Trump administration continues to warrant the ban. The filing by the Justice Department said the request for a delay is unopposed by TikTok and ByteDance.
Discussions continue between representatives of ByteDance and US national security officials, according to the WSJ's sources. Those discussions have centered on data security and ways to prevent the information TikTok collects on American users from being accessed by the Chinese government, they said.
