Day 188

 20/09/2020 Sunday, Sunny

Trump wants to cut all middle men and drives deals directly. Both Republican establishment and Democrats are his enemy. Big capitalists/billionairs need to take side or switch side.

China's ByteDance gets Trump nod to avoid TikTok shutdown

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he supported a deal in principle that would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States, even as it appeared to conflict with his earlier order for China’s ByteDance to divest the video app.

<This is unprecedented for a US president to revert an Executive Order.>

TikTok will be owned by a new company called TikTok Global and will be headquartered in the United States, possibly in Texas, Trump said. Oracle Corp will take a 12.5% stake in TikTok Global and store all its U.S. user data on its cloud to comply with U.S. national security requirements, the companies said. Retail giant Walmart said it would take a 7.5% stake in TikTok Global. The implied valuation for TikTok Global as a result of these investments could not be learned. 

<The two companies would pay a combined $12 billion for their stakes if they agree to a $60 billion asking price, Bloomberg reported. bloom.bg/33H3rT6> 

Given that U.S. investors currently own about 40% of ByteDance, the White House will count that towards how much of TikTok Global is owned by U.S. parties, the source added. As a result, Oracle, Walmart, and ByteDance’s U.S. investors will own, directly or indirectly, about 53% of TikTok Global, a second source said.

< US investors have majority>

“I said, you know, do me a favor, could you put up $5 billion into a fund for education so we can educate people as to the real history of our country, not the fake history,” Trump told a rally of supporters in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Saturday. 

<Trump wants a cut finantially and something for voters>

Oracle and Walmart described the agreement differently. They said that together with ByteDance top investors General Atlantic, Sequoia and Coatue they would create an educational initiative to deliver an artificial-intelligence driven online video curriculum for children, from basic reading and math to science, history and computer engineering.

The companies did not say how much they would spend on the education initiative. However, they said TikTok Global would pay more than $5 billion in new taxes to the U.S. Treasury.

<New owners think differently.>