The US Department of Treasury Department on Wednesday said it wants a resolution of national security concerns it has raised over China-based ByteDance’s (字節跳動) acquisition of US social media app Musical.ly, which it then merged into the video-sharing app TikTok.
The statement came a day after ByteDance filed a petition with the US Court of Appeals in Washington challenging an order from the administration of US President Donald Trump that was set to take effect yesterday requiring it to divest TikTok unless it can reach an agreement with US regulators or win an extension.
“The Treasury Department remains focused on reaching a resolution of the national security risks arising from ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly,” spokeswoman Monica Crowley said. “We have been clear with ByteDance regarding the steps necessary to achieve that resolution.”
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The divestiture order was based on a government review of ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly in 2017.
The Trump administration contends that the merged entity poses national security concerns as the personal data of US users could be obtained by China’s government.
TikTok, which has more than 100 million US users, denies the allegations.
ByteDance’s petition named Trump, US Attorney General William Barr, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the interagency panel that reviews certain transactions involving foreign investment on national security concerns.
“We remain focused on continuing to engage CFIUS and look forward to reaching a resolution that addresses their security concerns, even as we disagree with them,” TikTok said in a statement.
Trump directed ByteDance, which owns 100 percent of TikTok, in an Aug. 14 order to divest the app within 90 days.
ByteDance has been in talks for a deal with Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to shift TikTok’s US assets into a new entity called TikTok Global.
It on Tuesday said it was requesting a 30-day extension so that it can finalize terms.
Trump said in September the deal had his “blessing.”
“Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the Aug. 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement.
ByteDance said a fourth proposal submitted on Friday last week sought to address US security concerns “by creating a new entity, wholly owned by Oracle, Walmart and existing US investors in ByteDance, that would be responsible for handling TikTok’s US user data and content moderation.”
Separate restrictions on TikTok from the US Department of Commerce have been blocked by federal courts, including restrictions on transactions that were scheduled to take effect yesterday that TikTok warned could effectively ban the app’s use in the US.
A ban on Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google offering TikTok for download for new US users that had been set to take effect on Sept. 27 has also been blocked by federal judges.
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