ByteDance has no intention to sell TikTok and will sue the US government.

ByteDance indicated that it has no intention to sell the short-video app TikTok.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the TikTok bill last weekend, requiring ByteDance to spin off TikTok, otherwise TikTok will be prohibited from continuing to operate in the U.S. market.

Bloomberg reported on Tuesday (April 23rd) that TikTok’s management informed employees in an internal memo that if the TikTok bill was signed into law, the company would respond to the matter through legal means. The report said that ByteDance has sufficient reasons to challenge Washington’s move. Its business in the US is much larger now than in 2020.

TikTok currently has 170 million users in the US, and in 2020, TikTok had less than 100 million users in the US, and TikTok’s revenue in the US far exceeds that in any other market. For the US government and TikTok, this will be a legally challenging turning point that could shape the business landscape of Chinese companies such as Tencent and Temu that have expansion plans in the US.

Analysts said that if ByteDance ends TikTok’s business in the US, there may still be a chance to return to the US market in the future. In contrast, divestiture also involves the transfer of technology, and giving TikTok to US competitors means that ByteDance will be shut out in the future.