Renowned Chinese-owned video app TikTok has been given six weeks to sell its US operations to an American company.
This new development is an order that has been given by US President Donald Trump.
Trump also said, on Monday, it would be “out of business” otherwise, and that the government wanted a financial benefit from the deal.
Speaking further, he said, “It’s got to be an American company… it’s got to be owned here,”. “We don’t want to have any problem with security.”
Meanwhile, Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok, which has as many as one billion worldwide users who make quirky 60-second videos with its smartphone app.
But US officials say the app constitutes a national security risk because it could share millions of Americans’ personal data with Chinese intelligence.
Before this new development was made public, Trump gave the company’s Chinese parent ByteDance until mid-September to strike a deal.
“I set a date of around September 15, at which point it’s going to be out of business in the United States,” he said.
On the price, Trump also stated that, “the United States should get a very large percentage of that price because we’re making it possible.”
