Looks like both Bytedance and Musical.ly are Cayman islands, so I'm not sure how the US has any say in what they do, though I understand the spirit is "do what we want or lose the US (and possibly the world) market".
I don't know how anything the US does can affect what two companies in a different country decide to do between them, legally speaking. The executive order sounds weird to me.
Also, I don't understand how they can block a sale three years later. What's the time frame on that? Why not ten years later? A hundred?
The US can embargo the product and prevent its use in the US. This is a significant enough market to the company that they'd rather have whatever the discounted sale price of a forced sale than what they think the future value of (Tiktok - USA - India - other US Allies that get encouraged to do the same) is.
I don't know how anything the US does can affect what two companies in a different country decide to do between them, legally speaking. The executive order sounds weird to me.
Also, I don't understand how they can block a sale three years later. What's the time frame on that? Why not ten years later? A hundred?