“China keeps the algorithm”: Critics attack Trump’s TikTok deal
TikTok will not shut down on Wednesday, as President Donald Trump inches nearer to closing a deal with China that will most likely see the app's majority ownership shift to US owners and US-based users shift to a new app.
On Tuesday, Trump confirmed that he has extended the deadline to December 16 for TikTok owner ByteDance to divest ownership to comply with a law designed to block China from spying on US users or manipulating TikTok's algorithm to influence Americans.
The president claimed that the extension allows time to finalize a deal that sources told The Wall Street Journal would shift 80 percent ownership to "an investor consortium including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz." Existing ByteDance investors will also join the consortium, including Susquehanna International, KKR, and General Atlantic, the WSJ reported.