TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has stated that it does not plan to sell the business, despite the United States passing a law that would require the company to sell the popular video app or face a ban in America.
“ByteDance doesn’t have any plans to sell TikTok,” the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns.
TikTok did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the BBC.
Earlier in the week, TikTok announced its intention to legally challenge what it described as an “unconstitutional” law.
ByteDance’s statement was in reaction to a report by The Information, a technology industry website, which claimed that ByteDance was considering selling TikTok’s operations in the US without including the algorithm that powers the app.
“Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true,” the company said in the post, which included a screen shot of the article with the Chinese characters meaning “false rumour” stamped on it.
The measure to either sell or ban the app was signed into law by US President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
Concerns have intensified in the US and other Western countries about the extent of the Chinese Communist Party’s influence over ByteDance and the data it manages, amid Beijing’s increasing control over private companies.
TikTok has consistently refuted allegations that the Chinese government has control over ByteDance.
“We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,” said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week.
“The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side… rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere.”
According to TikTok, ByteDance’s Chinese founder owns 20% of shares, through a controlling stake in the company.
About 60% of ByteDance is held by institutional investors, including prominent US firms like Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group.
The remaining 20% is owned by its global employees, and three out of ByteDance’s five board members are American.
The Chinese government has labeled such concerns as paranoia and has cautioned that a TikTok ban would “inevitably come back to bite the US.”
However, TikTok is not currently facing an immediate ban in the US.
The new legislation allows ByteDance a nine-month period to sell the business, with an additional three-month grace period before a potential ban could be implemented.
This timeline suggests that the deadline for the sale would most likely fall sometime in 2025, after the inauguration of the winner of the 2024 presidential election.