National security concerns reportedly delay TikTok-U.S. deal
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Negotiations between TikTok and the U.S. government have been delayed as officials continue to worry about the potential national security issues the app could pose given its ownership by Chinese company ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The government’s concerns include how TikTok could share information related to its video recommendation algorithm and how much trust the government would ultimately need to put in TikTok to follow through on the deal’s terms, according to the Journal. The government has yet to come back with TikTok with new requests on how to address the concerns, the Journal reported based on unnamed sources. TikTok confirmed it has not received an update from the government about any unresolved concerns.
“While we can’t comment on the specifics of those confidential discussions, we are confident that we are on a path to fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns and have already made significant strides toward implementing those solutions,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.
The two sides had reached broad agreements about storing U.S. user data on Oracle servers in the U.S., the Journal reported, moving it from TikTok data centers in Virginia and Singapore. Oracle would also be in charge of overseeing protocols about which employees within TikTok could access U.S. user data, according to the report.
U.S. officials and lawmakers have been vocal about their security concerns with TikTok. Republicans in the House are widely expected to use control of the chamber next year to zero in on fears about the app’s ties to China.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers last month that he is “extremely concerned” about TikTok’s U.S. operations. He said the FBI’s feedback “would be taken into account in any agreements made to address the issue.”
In notes on Wednesday, analysts predicted that Meta, Google’s YouTube and Snap would stand to gain from a TikTok ban in the U.S.
Bank of America analysts said a TikTok ban is a “possible but not most likely scenario,” adding that a “negotiated sale to a US tech or media company could be more likely if a ban was on the horizon, and a sale could accelerate advertiser interest.”
“In a ban scenario, we would view Snap as the biggest sentiment beneficiary, followed by Meta,” the analysts wrote.
Cowen analysts wrote Wednesday that Meta’s Reels, short-form videos similar to those on TikTok, “would be the biggest beneficiary” of a TikTok ban, followed by YouTube’s Shorts.
“If TikTok were banned, 26% of its users would reallocate their time spent to IG Reels, 21% to YouTube
Shorts & 3% to SNAP’s Spotlight,” Cowen estimated based on its November survey.
Still, Cowen analysts agreed a full ban is not the most likely scenario.
“We continue to believe TikTok will survive in the US,” Cowen policy analyst Paul Gallant wrote. “But we think it’s now a very close call, and we maintain our 40% chance of a ban in 2023.”
“The question now is whether CFIUS is pausing to determine what else is needed for a strong settlement, so it can be successfully sold to Capitol Hill,” he added. “Or whether CFIUS is reassessing a monitoring agreement altogether in favor of mandating that Bytedance divest TikTok,” referring to the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which is leading negotiations.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read the full report at The Wall Street Journal.
CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, holds hundred dollar bills as he speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference at Miami Beach Convention Center on April 7, 2022 in Miami, Florida.
Marco Bello | Getty Images
The Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital asset firm to head for the public market.
The company, led by CEO Tom Farley, a veteran of the finance industry and former president of the New York Stock Exchange, said it plans to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “BLSH.”
A spinout of Block.one, Bullish started with an initial investment from backers including Thiel’s Founders Fund and Thiel Capital, along with Nomura, Mike Novogratz and others. Bullish acquired crypto news site CoinDesk in 2023.
“In the first quarter of 2025, Bullish exchange executed over $2.5 billion in average daily volume, ranking in the top five exchanges by spot volume for Bitcoin and Ether,” the company said on its website. The prospectus listed top competitors as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.
The IPO filing says that as of March 31, the total trading volume since launch has exceeded $1.25 trillion.
The filing is another significant step for the cryptocurrency industry, which has fought for years to convince institutions to embrace digital assets as legitimate investments.
It’s already been a big year on the market for crypto offerings, highlighted by stablecoin issuer Circle, which has jumped more than sevenfold since its IPO in June. Etoro, an online trading platform that includes services for crypto investors, debuted in May.
Novogratz‘s crypto firm Galaxy Digital started trading on the Nasdaq in May, moving its listing from the Toronto Stock Exchange. And in June, Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange and custodian founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, confidentially filed for an IPO in the U.S.
Meanwhile, investors continue to flock to bitcoin. The digital currency is trading at over $117,000, up from about $94,000 at the start of the year.
President Donald Trump, on Friday, signed the GENIUS Act into law — a set of regulations that establish some initial consumer protections around stablecoins, which are tied to assets like the U.S. dollar with the intent of reducing price volatility associated with many cryptocurrencies.
In its filing with the SEC, Bullish says its mission is partly to “drive the adoption of stablecoins, digital assets, and blockchain technology.”
Crypto industry players, including Thiel, Elon Musk, and President Trump’s AI and Crypto czar David Sacks spent heavily to re-elect Trump and have pushed for legislation that legitimizes digital assets and exchanges.
WATCH: Trump’s crypto plan
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