Chinese multinational conglomerate -- ByteDance -- is ready to forego its shares in the short video app TikTok. The shares would likely be bought by the tech giant Microsoft. This comes as a way to prevent the ban on the app in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported.
United States President Donald Trump Friday that his administration is weighing action against TikTok and would soon ban it in the country, as per media reports.
Trump said to media: “We are looking at TikTok,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We may be banning TikTok. We may be doing some other things. There a couple of options, but a lot of things are happening. So we’ll see what happens.”
Under the new deal, Microsoft would take over stewardship of the data of U.S.-based users as the country showed its apprehensions over TikTok stealing users’ data to serve it to the Chinese government.
The deal would permit another company besides Microsoft to operate TikTok in the United States, Tech Crunch reported.
Recently, ByteDance had sought a deal where it could retain minority stakes in the company. The proposal had been reportedly rejected by the White House.
It is still unclear whether the White House will agree on Microsoft’s proposal.