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“… Another person who has sat in on conversations with senior White House officials about a TikTok deal said appeasing Congress is seen as a key hurdle.
Under a law passed by Congress and upheldby the Supreme Court, TikTok must execute what is known as "qualified divestiture" from ByteDance in order to stay in business in the U.S. Trump is given wide latitude to interpret what that means, but experts say it could involve ByteDance retaining a minority stake in the company.
The app has passed its Jan. 19 deadline for achieving that splitting off from ByteDance, but President Trump has issued an executive order intended to provide a 75-day extension, though legal experts say the action cannot supersede the now-passed deadline set forth by Congress.
A congressional staffer involved in talks about TikTok's future, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said binding legal agreements from the White House ensuring ByteDance cannot covertly manipulate the app will prove critical in winning lawmakers' approval.
"A key part is showing there is no operational relationship with ByteDance, that they do not have control," the Congressional staffer said. "There needs to be no backdoors where China can potentially gain access."
… A national security plan that also involved Oracle, known as Project Texas — which gained momentum during the Biden administration — fell short of guaranteeing TikTok's independence from ByteDance, the staffer noted, but would not elaborate, saying it involves a security vulnerability that could have given China access to the data of American users.
The Project Texas proposal to eventually collapsed when Biden officials instead chose to get behind a congressional effort to force ByteDance to sell TikTok, or face a nationwide ban.
… China experts have said Beijing may be interested in approving a TikTok sale as a negotiating tactic to try to win tariff relief in the White House.
… Trump's executive order was enough for Oracle, and other web infrastructure companies, to restore TikTok's services. But other companies are not taking a gamble, including Apple and Google.
Under the TikTok ban law, supporting TikTok while it remains under the control of ByteDance can lead to hundreds of billions of dollars in fines, a punishment that can be levied a year after Trump's term.
"Oracle just has more confidence in Trump's political assurances," said Kreps at Brookings. "For Apple and Google, yes, they were invited to the inauguration last week, but where will things stand next week?" …”
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I would put it a different way — Oracle has a long term profit interest in working with Trump to acquire controlling ownership of TikTok, so the potential fines are currently worth the risk. For now.
“… Another person who has sat in on conversations with senior White House officials about a TikTok deal said appeasing Congress is seen as a key hurdle.
Under a law passed by Congress and upheldby the Supreme Court, TikTok must execute what is known as "qualified divestiture" from ByteDance in order to stay in business in the U.S. Trump is given wide latitude to interpret what that means, but experts say it could involve ByteDance retaining a minority stake in the company.
The app has passed its Jan. 19 deadline for achieving that splitting off from ByteDance, but President Trump has issued an executive order intended to provide a 75-day extension, though legal experts say the action cannot supersede the now-passed deadline set forth by Congress.
A congressional staffer involved in talks about TikTok's future, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said binding legal agreements from the White House ensuring ByteDance cannot covertly manipulate the app will prove critical in winning lawmakers' approval.
"A key part is showing there is no operational relationship with ByteDance, that they do not have control," the Congressional staffer said. "There needs to be no backdoors where China can potentially gain access."
… A national security plan that also involved Oracle, known as Project Texas — which gained momentum during the Biden administration — fell short of guaranteeing TikTok's independence from ByteDance, the staffer noted, but would not elaborate, saying it involves a security vulnerability that could have given China access to the data of American users.
The Project Texas proposal to eventually collapsed when Biden officials instead chose to get behind a congressional effort to force ByteDance to sell TikTok, or face a nationwide ban.
… China experts have said Beijing may be interested in approving a TikTok sale as a negotiating tactic to try to win tariff relief in the White House.
… Trump's executive order was enough for Oracle, and other web infrastructure companies, to restore TikTok's services. But other companies are not taking a gamble, including Apple and Google.
Under the TikTok ban law, supporting TikTok while it remains under the control of ByteDance can lead to hundreds of billions of dollars in fines, a punishment that can be levied a year after Trump's term.
"Oracle just has more confidence in Trump's political assurances," said Kreps at Brookings. "For Apple and Google, yes, they were invited to the inauguration last week, but where will things stand next week?" …”
——
I would put it a different way — Oracle has a long term profit interest in working with Trump to acquire controlling ownership of TikTok, so the potential fines are currently worth the risk. For now.
