TikTok outlasted Trump

Follow Us Get the newsletter Hi all, it's Zheping in Hong Kong. The billionaire founder of ByteDance Ltd.—owner of social media phenomenon TikTok—gathered employees last month for his first virtual town hall at the company in half a year. Addressing ByteDance's more than 100,000 foot soldiers worldwide, Zhang Yiming delivered a reassuring message after months of TikTok serving as a political football between the U.S. and China. "Keep calm and be tenacious," he said, according to attendees at the meeting, who asked not to be identified discussing a private event. He also said he thought TikTok's geopolitical struggles would eventually be resolved.  Zhang has reason to be optimistic. Back in August, Trump officials had labeled Chinese-owned TikTok a national security threat and ruled that ByteDance must turn ownership over to American shareholders. But the proposed deal—a sale of 20% of the app to Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc.—has been mired in legal action and convoluted negotiations. Any inkling that Trump might act before he left office was quickly eclipsed by a riot at the U.S. Capitol and impeachment in his final days as president.  Now, TikTok has officially outlasted Trump and the question of what to do with the popular service falls to the newly elected President Joe Biden. Biden's team has signaled it would continue to take a tough line on China and seek cooperation on issues such as climate change. But while the president has said little about the country's tech behemoths, it's unlikely he'll pursue individual companies with the same zeal as his predecessor, experts say.  "In the context of TikTok, the Trump administration's approach was really characterized by drama, by personalization of the process, by almost a war of bravado between Trump and Xi [Jinping] to some extent," said Lindsay Gorman, a fellow for emerging technologies at the Alliance for Securing Democracy in Washington. "And I don't think we're going to see any of that when it comes to the Biden administration." Gorman predicts a more systematic approach from Biden. Rather than defending Trump's executive orders on TikTok and other individual apps like China's Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s WeChat and Ant Group Co.'s Alipay, Biden might pursue wider-reaching policies. For example, his administration could take a step back and establish a broader framework addressing digital risks, Gorman said, potentially looping in allies like India and the European Union, which are also scrutinizing TikTok. Just this past weekend, Italy's privacy watchdog asked TikTok to block unverified accounts of younger users, following reports of a 10-year-old girl's death in Sicily. And back in June, the EU's data-protection chiefs pledged to coordinate potential investigations into TikTok and establish a taskforce to get a better understanding of the app's data practices. India, for its part, already banned TikTok along with hundreds of other Chinese apps, as New Delhi and Beijing clashed over border disputes. Regardless of what the U.S. decides to do, TikTok has bought time. There's no regulatory pressure to rush through a sale, now that the deadlines imposed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. have lapsed without enforcement. The chances are also slim that Trump's parallel order to ban the app will go into effect, after multiple judges suggested they disagreed with the government's legal rationale to do so. TikTok's massive business in the U.S. is still at risk, but the pressure on the company has lightened at least for now. —Zheping Huang If you read one thing Read about the strange saga in which Redditors posting to the r/wallstreetbets forum helped send GameStop stock up as much as 145% on Monday—and up 245% for the year—burning short sellers in the process. "Price movement aside, I am most astounded by the thought process that goes in to making these decisions," one of the short sellers said. Redditors, meanwhile, are gleeful at their newfound power: "Have you robbed your billionaire today?" wrote one.  Paid Post The world's most trusted organizations partner with Crowdstrike to stop data breaches. We stop. So you can go. Crowdstrike secures the data and infrastructure that keeps the world running. That's why we're a trusted partner of the world's most important organizations. We stop. So you can go. Crowdstrike And here's what you need to know in global technology news VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is officially getting into the media business.  Twitter is asking its users to help it monitor misinformation, testing a new product called Birdwatch.  Serial SPAC investor Chamath Palihapitiya invested in two deals in one day.  Apple's hardware chief is leaving his post for an unnamed new project.   You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022