A California judge suspended early in the night from Saturday to Sunday the ban imposed by the Commerce Department in the name of national security on downloading in the United States the WeChat application, of the Chinese giant Tencent, which was to come into force on Sunday .
This ban was, in effect, to virtually deactivate the functions of the application of the platform used by some 19 million users on American soil for messaging, purchases, payments and other services.
It had been challenged in court by a group of users.
A deal in sight for TikTok
This decision is part of the tensions between the two economic giants, China and the United States, which have been growing since August when the host of the White House issued an ultimatum to TikTok, which he accuses industrial espionage on behalf of Beijing, without however having made tangible evidence public.
This Sunday, an agreement was in sight on the hugely popular TikTok app and a project involving Oracle and Walmart.
"I gave my approval to the deal," said the Republican president, before departing for a campaign rally in North Carolina.
TikTok, a subsidiary of Chinese group ByteDance, confirmed shortly after preparing a plan to create a new company involving Oracle as a technology partner in the United States and Walmart as a business partner.
Called TikTok Global, it would be based in the United States and would hire 25,000 people, said Oracle and Walmart in a separate press release.
Oracle could buy 12.5% stake in TikTok and Walmart 7.5% before a future listing on the New York Stock Exchange scheduled within a year.
ByteDance would keep the rest of the capital, said a source familiar with the matter.
But the Chinese company being 40% owned by American investors, the majority of the application would ultimately pass under the American flag.
Oracle, Walmart, and US investors in ByteDance will own about 53% of TikTok Global, according to a source cited by Reuters.
