ByteDance asks for $60 billion as TikTok valuation in US deal: Report
A newspaper reported that ByteDance seeks a valuation of $60 billion for TikTok as Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc. take stakes in the short-video app's business to address US security concerns, citing an unnamed person familiar to this matter.
Oracle will take a 12.5 percent stake in TikTok Global and store all its US user data in its cloud to comply with US national security requirements. On the other hand, retail giant Walmart said it would take a 7.5 percent stake. The two companies would pay a combined $12 billion for their stakes if they agree to a $60 billion asking price, as reported.
The final valuation had not been set as the companies worked out the equity structure and measures for data security, as per the report.
The US President Donald Trump said that he supported a deal in principle that would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States, even as it appeared to conflict with his earlier executive order for China’s ByteDance to divest the video app.
ByteDance was racing to avoid a crackdown on TikTok after the US Commerce Department said that it would block new downloads and updates to the app from Sunday.
US officials had expressed concern that the personal data of as many as 100 million Americans that use the app were being passed on to China’s Communist Party government.
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