[ad_1]
The Trump administration’s existential threat to TikTok is in play once again, as today is the deadline for its Chinese parent company ByteDance to unwind a 2018 merger that helped create the app.
The big picture: There is no precedent for what could happen after the stroke of midnight, and so far the Treasury is squirming.
- The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has previously demanded that past mergers be rolled back (e.g. Grindr), but never before has such an order been fulfilled in time.
- TikTok would, at least in theory, be in violation of the law if it continues to operate, unless CFIUS grants it a 30-day extension (which it doesn’t have) or a judge grants it. an emergency injunction (for which TikTok filed suit on Tuesday).
- The initial CFIUS decision indicates that the US Department of Justice “is authorized to take all necessary measures.”
“Wait a minute,” said the rhetorical reader. “I thought they had a deal with Oracle and Walmart that President Trump approved?”
- Yes, but Trump only approved it in concept. The devil was in the details, especially when it comes to privacy and data security, and those details remain obscure.
What TikTok says: “In the nearly two months since the President gave his preliminary approval to our proposal to address these concerns, we have offered detailed solutions to finalize this deal – but we have not received any substantive feedback.
What the Treasury says: Nothing. Not only to reporters like me, but sources suggest that TikTok / ByteDance has also died out as the election approaches.
The bottom line: TikTok is two-for-two in court injunction applications, but both of these cases involved poorly drafted executive orders. Overcoming CFIUS, which is designed to protect national security, could be a higher bar. In the meantime, more than 1,500 U.S. workers and roughly 100 million U.S. users are at stake.
[ad_2]
Source link