TikTok and a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department declined to comment. Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ByteDance’s acceptance of the Treasury Department’s changes to its proposal was reported earlier by Bloomberg. The plan to take TikTok public was earlier reported by CNBC.
While rushing to secure a deal, TikTok is also hunting for a permanent chief executive to replace Kevin Mayer, who resigned in late August, citing the changing political pressures of the role. Vanessa Pappas, the general manager of TikTok in North America, took over in the interim.
Among those whom TikTok has talked to about the job is Kevin Systrom, a founder and former chief executive of Instagram, people briefed on the matter said. Talks are preliminary, and no final decisions have been made, they said.
The parties to a deal expect to name an American chief executive of the new TikTok entity, one person familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Systrom left Instagram, which Facebook owns, in 2018. He did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
The drama over TikTok is part of a battle between Washington and Beijing over who will control central aspects of the internet. American officials say that because China has laws that require tech companies to provide the government with access to data, its internet companies pose a national security risk.
The Trump administration’s early efforts focused on the equipment that delivers internet connections around the world, by trying to keep products made by Huawei and ZTE out of American networks and those used by U.S. allies. More recently, it has begun to scrutinize consumer technology companies. The administration forced a Chinese company to sell Grindr, a gay dating app, this year, for example.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/technology/tiktok-deal-revisions-trump-review.html
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