From the desk of Andrew Ross Sorkin ...this is the main reason I...

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    From the desk of Andrew Ross Sorkin

    ...this is the main reason I cautioned readers in this thread that poses a headwinds for the tech stocks...the TikTok/WeChat saga that could escalate the US-China tech war.

    Now despite a new model that was designed to appease both US and China, POTUS has sounded his preliminary objection to the deal as it falls short of a US buyout. And we are fast approaching the Sep 20 deadline which POTUS has indicated that he will not extend.

    2% Nasdaq fall on the futures.

    Column 1
    0 ‘Can you believe that?’
    1 Oracle and TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, may have thought they had struck a deal that appeases both the Trump administration and Beijing. But eyebrow-raising comments by President Trump at a news conference yesterday suggest that it’s too early to tell, even as the White House’s deadline for TikTok to sell itself or get shut down is days away.
    2 Mr. Trump said he wasn’t yet prepared to sign off on the deal. “They’re giving me studies on the deal — it has to be 100 percent as far as national security is concerned,” he told reporters. “No, I’m not prepared to sign off on anything.” He’ll be briefed on the latest proposal this morning.
    3 What about that “big payment” to the Treasury? When asked whether the Oracle deal would include a payment to the U.S. government that Mr. Trump called for early in the process — a demand that took the business community by surprise — he answered, “Amazingly, I find that you’re not allowed to do that.” He implied that the companies were willing to pay, an extraordinary suggestion in itself, and said:
    4 I’m saying, wait a minute, they’re willing to make a big payment to the government, and we’re not allowed to take the money? When does this happen? How foolish can we be? So we’re going to, we’re looking into that right now.
    You understand that? In other words, I said I want a big chunk of that money to go to the United States government, because we made it possible. And the lawyers come back to me and they say, ‘Well, there’s no way of doing that.’
    You know why? Because nobody’s ever heard of that before, nobody’s ever said that before. Nobody’s ever said, ‘Well we’ll approve the deal, but we want a lot of money to go to the government, because by approving the deal we’re making the deal valuable.’ They’ve never heard of that before. OK? Can you believe that?
    5 There is plenty of other unsettled business. Trump administration officials now want U.S. companies to own a majority stake in TikTok, going against ByteDance’s — and, presumably, Beijing’s — desire to maintain control of the business. Asked whether he would favor ByteDance’s retaining control, Mr. Trump said, “Conceptually, I don’t like that.”
    6 Other issues that are still up in the air:
    7 • Whether Walmart (or others) will join the Oracle consortium. Two people said the retail giant was likely to team up with the group, which may explain why Senator Tom Cotton, who represents Walmart’s home state of Arkansas and is a notable hawk on China, has recently been quiet on the matter.
    8 • Whether other Republican lawmakers will step up their opposition, after Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas said they might favor banning TikTok in the U.S. rather than letting ByteDance maintain control.
    9 • Who will run TikTok, since Kevin Mayer stepped down as C.E.O. last month. Vanessa Pappas, the company’s head of North America since 2018, is leading the company in the interim, but executives are considering bringing in an outsider.
    10 People involved in the negotiations tell DealBook they’re exasperated, given the president’s mercurial wants, the hard line taken by Beijing and constantly shifting commercial terms. Asked what will happen next, one source sighed: “Who the hell knows?”
    11 ____________________________
    12 Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in Connecticut, Lauren Hirsch in New York, Ephrat Livni in Washington, and Michael J. de la Merced and Jason Karaian in London.
    13 ____________________________
    14
    15 A defense of face masks by Dr. Robert Redfield, the C.D.C. director, drew a rebuke from President Trump.  Pool photo by Anna Moneymaker/EPA, via Shutterstock
    16 Here’s what’s happening
    17 The Fed faced internal dissent after pledging to keep rates unchanged for years. The central bank plans to leave rates near zero through at least 2023 and tolerate periods of higher inflation. Two Fed presidents voted against the plan, for different reasons: Robert Kaplan of Dallas wants more flexibility in setting rates, while Neel Kashkari of Minnesota wants a stronger commitment to keeping rates low for longer.
    18 LVMH wants to delay its legal fight with Tiffany. The French conglomerate opposed an expedited trial over its effort to walk away from its $16.2 billion deal to buy Tiffany. The New York-based jeweler argued that the move was an effort to run out the clock on their merger agreement, which expires on Nov. 24.
    19 U.S. retail sales growth is slowing. Spending climbed for a fourth straight month in August, but there are signs that the expiry of economic stimulus is taking a toll.
    20 President Trump rejected the C.D.C. chief’s comments on Covid-19 vaccines and face masks. Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the C.D.C., told a Senate panel that vaccines probably wouldn’t be distributed widely until next summer, and that wearing face masks was crucial. Mr. Trump later asserted that a vaccine could be available within weeks and played down the usefulness of masks.
    21 Short-term thinking is leading to “really dumb decisions,” says Jamie Dimon. The JPMorgan Chase C.E.O. told a CNBC-moderated panel that governments aren’t taking steps to bring about healthy economic growth, including addressing income inequality. “What we focus on is blaming each other and we stifle ourselves, because we are unable to do very basic stuff,” he said.
    22
    23 See you next summer.  Justin Lane/EPA-EFE, via Rex, via Shutterstock, via
    24 The growing divide over remote working
    25 Whether — and how — to bring workers back to the office (however that’s defined) remains a contentious issue. Here’s the latest on how some big companies are managing it.
    26 In the cautious camp:
    27 • Deutsche Bank told its U.S. employees that they aren’t expected back at the office until next summer, noting “understandable concerns about public transportation, cleanliness, security and other quality-of-life issues.”
    28 • Facebook is looking to hire a director of remote working as it carries out a plan to let employees permanently work from home.
    29 In the other camp:
    30 • JPMorgan has reportedly stopped letting junior traders expense Uber rides to the office, ending a measure meant to help them avoid taking public transportation, Bloomberg reports.
    31 • And in a different work arena, the Big Ten college football conference plans to play as soon as next month, reversing a decision to put the season off until next year. The announcement comes despite Louisiana State University’s football coach, Ed Orgeron, having casually acknowledged on Tuesday that “most” of his team had contracted Covid-19.
 
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