A striking story is bubbling away in the private capital world about Chinese tech company ByteDance, owner of the short-form video platform TikTok.
This is not (just) about accusations that TikTok’s user community has a pro-Palestinian slant; nor that social media is harming teenage mental health. Instead, this issue is ByteDance’s balance sheet: financiers close to the company recently told the FT that this shows more than $50bn in free cash, of which $5bn is earmarked for buybacks — a prospect that might tempt some investors to sell out, given the rising (geo)political heat.
Foreign policy experts and investors alike should watch this closely. For as 2024 looms, ByteDance has become a key litmus test of US-China relations — and the extent to which they are sparking not just a Sino-American tech, trade and cyber war, but a capital markets conflict too.