How a marked-up term sheet and messy rollout threw TikTok deal into disarray

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON/NEW YORK: As China’s ByteDance raced to seal a deal with Oracle Corp and Walmart Inc to keep its video-sharing app TikTok operational in the United States, an apparent breakthrough came last Wednesday in a phone call to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

A top ByteDance lawyer spoke to Mnuchin to convey that the Chinese company would agree to terms put forth by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government panel he chairs that scrutinizes deals for potential national security risks. U.S. officials are concerned that the personal data of as many as 100 million American TikTok users could be passed on to China’s Communist Party government.