After criticism in China for ‘kneeling down’ to the US, ByteDance affirms its control over TikTok Global
- US President Donald Trump says TikTok Global will be ‘totally controlled by Oracle and Walmart’
- ByteDance, however, says the US-based entity will be its wholly owned subsidiary, and that it will retain a controlling stake after a pre-IPO funding round
In a post on ByteDance’s news aggregation platform Jinri Toutiao, the Beijing-based company also denied that it had committed to pay US$5 billion in taxes to the US Treasury or to create a US education fund worth the same amount under the deal.
“All of the control is Walmart and Oracle, two great American companies,” Trump said. “The security will be 100 per cent.”
But ByteDance said in the post on Monday morning that TikTok Global will be its wholly owned subsidiary. ByteDance plans to list TikTok Global “to further enhance the corporate governance structure and transparency”, but even after a small pre-IPO funding round it will still own a controlling 80 per cent stake, it added. Oracle will take a 12.5 per cent stake while Walmart has tentatively agreed to purchase 7.5 per cent, according to earlier statements from the American companies.