Any forced deals of TikTok won't be accepted

The lasting saga surrounding TikTok in the United States seems to be nearing an end with US President Donald Trump claiming on Friday that "we pretty much have a deal" on the highly popular Chinese short video-sharing app.

According to US administration officials, the deal set to be finalized would include TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance turning over its US operations to a new company with a majority US ownership, with the possible investors comprising Oracle, Blackstone, Andreessen Horowitz and others. ByteDance, which is based in China, would reportedly maintain a minority ownership in the new company under the 20 percent threshold as required by US Congress.

There were also previous reports that a consortium organized by billionaire business executive Frank McCourt had offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for TikTok's US platform.