The Chinese parent firm of TikTok, ByteDance, has stated that it has no plans to sell the company in the wake of a US law that requires it to sell the immensely popular video app or face bans in the US.
“ByteDance doesn’t have any plans to sell TikTok,” the firm stated on Toutiao, a social media network it controls, through its official account.
TikTok announced earlier this week that it will contest the “unconstitutional” law in court.
Following media allegations that it was looking into ways to sell TikTok without the algorithm that runs it, ByteDance released a statement.
The business stated, “Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true.”
US President Joe Biden signed the sell-or-ban legislation into law on Wednesday.
Concerns over the extent of Chinese Communist Party control over ByteDance and its data have been raised in the US and other Western nations due to Beijing’s increasing dominance over private enterprises.
Claims that the Chinese government controls ByteDance have been refuted by TikTok on several occasions.
“We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,” Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, stated in a video uploaded to the app this week.
“The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side… rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere.”
The Chinese creator of ByteDance reportedly owns 20% of the firm through a controlling interest, according to TikTok.
Institutional investors control around 60% of the company, including significant US investment companies Susquehanna International Group, General Atlantic, and Carlyle Group.
Three of ByteDance’s five board members are Americans, while the remaining twenty percent is held by the company’s global workforce.
The Chinese government has similarly warned that a TikTok ban would “inevitably come back to bite the US” and rejected such worries as hysterical.
But in the US, TikTok is not going to be banned as of yet.
Before a prospective ban can be implemented, the new rule provides ByteDance nine months to sell the company and an extra three months of grace.
This indicates that the selling deadline would probably occur in 2025, following the inauguration of the 2024 presidential victor.
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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