ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, has vehemently denied rumors circulating in the media regarding the potential sale of the popular social media platform.

The company’s response comes in the wake of President Joe Biden’s bill, which mandates ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok or face a ban in the United States.

In a statement released on its news platform Toutiao, ByteDance dismissed the reports as “false rumors,” stamping the phrase across a screenshot of the Information’s report.

“Foreign media reports that ByteDance is exploring the sale of TikTok are untrue. ByteDance has no plans to sell TikTok,” the statement affirmed.

This public denial from ByteDance marks its first response since Biden signed the bill, which imposes a strict deadline of nine months for the sale, with the possibility of a three-month extension if negotiations persist.

Failure to comply with the mandate could lead to a ban of the app in the U.S., citing national security concerns as raised by lawmakers from both political parties.

TikTok, on the other hand, has vehemently denied allegations of being a security threat and has asserted its independence from the Chinese government’s influence.

In response to the bill, the social media platform has declared its intent to legally challenge what it deems an “unconstitutional ban.

“Despite conflicting reports surrounding TikTok’s future, including speculation about its valuation and potential sale,

ByteDance’s denial casts doubt on the accuracy of recent media speculation. The Information’s report had suggested that ByteDance was exploring the sale of a majority stake in TikTok’s U.S. business to a non-technology company like Walmart, albeit without the recommendation algorithm.

The valuation of TikTok’s global business remains uncertain, with estimates ranging from $20 billion to $100 billion, reflecting the ambiguity surrounding its actual worth compared to ByteDance’s estimated $200 billion valuation.

This disparity underscores the complexity and uncertainty surrounding the potential sale of TikTok and its broader implications for ByteDance’s financial standing.

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Zhang Yiming announced in May he would step down as chief executive of the tech company he co-founded and on Wednesday he relinquished his chair title, with ByteDance’s English-language website no longer featuring a page that mentioned his formal board role. Instead, there was a photo of Zhang  under the heading of “leadership” with no title underneath. ByteDance declined to comment.
Reuters reported that ByteDance’s new chief executive, co-founder Liang Rubo, has taken over as chair of the company’s five-person board. It was also unclear whether there had been any changes to Zhang’s control of ByteDance, where he owns 50% of the voting rights.

In May, the company had said he would move to a “key strategy” position at the end of the year. At the time, Zhang said he was leaving the role because he lacked managerial skills and preferred “reading and daydreaming” to running the tech group.

ByteDance is one of Chinese tech’s biggest global success stories thanks to TikTok, the short-video platform that has amassed more than 1 billion users worldwide and has become a competitive threat to rival US tech firms such as Facebook, Snapchat and Google-owned YouTube.
ByteDance was valued at $140bn (£102bn) in a fundraising round last year. It also owns Douyin, a video platform for its domestic market, and other interests that span education, gaming and business software.

A number of founders at some of China’s most well-known tech companies have in recent months given up overseeing daily operations amid a government clampdown on the tech sector. Last week, the short-video apps owner Kuaishou said its co-founder, Su Hua, had stepped down as chief executive. The founder of the e-commerce company Pinduoduo, Huang Zheng, stepped down as chair this year, having earlier relinquished his chief executive title.

According to analysts, the Chinese government has become increasingly concerned about the power and influence that has been amassed by wealthy tech entrepreneurs, with many of them multi billionaires. Tencent, a social media, gaming and finance group, and Alibaba, an online shopping giant, have both pledged multi billion pound sums to help achieve the “common prosperity” of the nation.

Jack Ma, Alibaba’s co-founder, has been a high-profile victim of the crackdown, only recently venturing outside China to go on holiday in Spain. Ma has limited his public appearances since the planned float of his online finance platform, Ant Group, was blocked by President Xi Jinping last year. The move came shortly after Ma delivered a speech criticizing Chinese financial regulators.
Foreign tech firms are also retreating from China, with Yahoo announcing this week that it was was quitting the country because of the “increasingly challenging business and legal environment in China”. The timing of the withdrawal coincided with China’s new data protection law coming into effect on Monday. The law limits the conditions under which companies can gather personal information and sets rules for how it is used.

The ByteDance board move comes after the company on Tuesday announced a major organizational reshuffle to create six business units. It also said TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, would step down as chief financial officer at ByteDance in order to focus on running the video platform full-time.

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TECHDIGEST – Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has described the proposed deal to buy TikTok, under pressure from the Trump White House, as “the strangest thing”.

In August 2020, as President Trump threatened to ban TikTok, the Chinese video app’s owner ByteDance approached Microsoft as a possible partner.

The plan was to force the sale of the US part of the business over concerns it was a threat to national security.

In an interview with tech journalist Kara Swisher at the Code Conference, Mr Nadella admitted he was “kind of intrigued” when TikTok approached him.

TikTok was “an interesting product” and a good fit for Microsoft because it was a social, cloud-based service that used AI, he said.

The backdrop to the potential partnership was that then-President Trump had given a 15 September 2020 deadline for the Chinese-owned app to sell its US business, or be shut down.

The day before that deadline, Microsoft revealed that its offer to buy the company had been rejected.

In the end, TikTok struck a deal with Oracle and Walmart. However, after months of delays and legal challenges, Mr Trump left office, and the need for any sort of deal receded.

details about that time, including that President Trump “had a particular point of view on what he was trying to get there, and then just dropped off”.

The requirements of the administration “just disappeared”, he added.

In June of this year, President Joe Biden revoked the executive order to ban TikTok and that of fellow Chinese app WeChat, putting any such deals with US tech firms on the backburner.

The US Department of Commerce said instead it would have continuing reviews of apps designed in “the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary” such as China.

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