US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he supports in principle a deal that would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States, even if it appears to contradict his previous order to withdraw ownership of the video app from the Chinese company, ByteDance. .

ByteDance was racing to avoid a Tik Tok ban after the US Commerce Department said on Friday it would block new downloads and updates to the app on Sunday.

US officials have expressed concern that the personal data of up to 100 million citizens who use the app will be transferred to the Chinese Communist Party government.

Trump signed an executive order on August 14 giving BitDance a 90-day period to sell Tik Tok.

However, the deal announced yesterday is based on a partnership, not a divestment.

The president said TikTok will be owned by a new company called TikTok Global and will be based in the United States, and possibly Texas.

The two companies said Oracle will acquire 12.5% ​​of TikTok Global and store all US user data on their own cloud to comply with US national security requirements.

The retail giant, Wallmart, will acquire a 7.5% stake in TikTok Global.

American officials have expressed concern about the transfer of citizens' personal data to the government of the Communist Party of China (Anatolia)

Beijing-based BiteDance did not respond to requests for comment.

Walmart and Oracle also did not provide further information about TikTok Global's ownership structure.

It was also not immediately clear what prompted the White House to abandon its push for direct sales of TikTok.

Nevertheless, the deal comes with pledges that fulfill Trump's "America first" policy agenda.

It also prohibits the deportation of young Tik Tok users before the US elections on November 3.

Unfair scheme

China must agree to the deal, and Trump said, "We'll see if all of this will happen or not." The first Chinese reaction to the deal came from Global Times, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party in China.

Editor Heo Shin said, "This scheme is still unfair, but it avoids the worst outcome of closing TikTok or selling it to an American company."

ByteDance has agreed to create 25,000 new jobs in the United States at TechTech, compared to 1,000 at present.

Trump, who has previously called on companies like Oracle and Walmart to pay "fees" to the United States to participate in the TikTok deal, said there would also be a US education fund of $ 5 billion as part of the deal.

Trump told a crowd of supporters in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Saturday, "I told them (meaning Oracle and Walmart) to do me a favor, can $ 5 billion be allocated to an education fund so that we can educate people about the true history of our country, not the fake history."

Oracle and Walmart described the agreement differently.

They said they, along with major investors in ByteDance, General Atlantic, Sequoia and Kotoy, will create an educational initiative to provide an AI-based online video curriculum for children, from basic reading and math to science, history and computer engineering.

These 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 US Treasury.

ByteDance will preserve the algorithm code under the deal, and Oracle will be able to scan it.

Oracle CEO Safra Katz said, "They are 100% confident in the ability to provide a highly secure environment for TikTok and ensure data privacy for American TikTok users and their users around the world."

Katz served on Trump's transition team in 2016, while Oracle Co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison is one of the few chief tech executives who openly support the president of the United States.

TikTok's "BitDance" ownership will likely be further downgraded next year.

Reuters said Thursday that ByteDance is planning an initial public offering of TikTok Global.

The IPO filing will be on a US exchange, and could come in about a year.

There will be a US education fund of $ 5 billion as part of the deal (agencies)

United States Foreign Investment Commission (CFIUS) approval

The Ministry of Commerce said Saturday that it will delay for one week an order that was scheduled to go into effect late on Sunday, which would have forced the "Alpha Bit" company, owner of the Google App Store, and Apple, the owner of the Apple store, to stop offering Tik Tok for download. The Tik Tok deal can be completed.

The United States Foreign Investment Commission, the government committee that oversees deal talks, must approve the deal.

Oracle surpassed Microsoft, which last week said its offer to acquire TikTok in the United States had been rejected by BitDance.

The Trump administration has stepped up efforts to cleanse what it considers "untrusted" Chinese apps from US digital networks.

"Tik Tok is here to stay," Vanessa Papa, the interim chief executive of Tik Tok, said in a video released Saturday.