WASHINGTON – A US plan to force the sale of US TikTok operations to a group that includes Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc. has been abandoned indefinitely, people familiar with the situation have said, while President Biden is undertaking a comprehensive review of his predecessor’s efforts to address potential security risks from Chinese technology companies.
The TikTok deal – which had been led by then-President Donald Trump – disappeared last fall amid successful legal challenges to the US government’s effort by owner TikTok, the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd.
Talks continued between ByteDance representatives and US national security officials, people said. These discussions focused on data security and ways to prevent the Chinese government from accessing information that TikTok collects from US users.
But no imminent decision is expected on how to solve the problems related to TikTok, as the Biden administration determines its own response to the potential security risk posed by the data collection of Chinese technology companies.
“We plan to develop a comprehensive US data security approach that addresses the full range of threats we face,” said National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne. “This includes the risk posed by Chinese applications and other software programs operating in the US. In the coming months, we expect to look at specific cases in light of a comprehensive understanding of the risks we face.”