关于TikTok的潜在交易，目前我们所知的
How a Sale of TikTok Would Work and Who Might Buy It

There's a new parlor game on Wall Street: guessing TikTok’s next owner.
华尔街现在出现了一个新的客厅游戏：猜TikTok的下一任所有者会是谁。

President Trump signed an executive order in January that delayed enforcement of a law that banned the popular video app. Under the order, the app must now be sold to a non-Chinese owner by early April.
特朗普总统在1月签署行政命令，推迟实施禁止这款热门视频应用的法律。如今，根据该命令，TikTok必须在4月初之前出售给非中国所有者。

Since he signed the order, Mr. Trump has dropped a flurry of sometimes conflicting hints about how the next several weeks could play out: He has suggested he wants a bidding war; he has said the United States should own part of the app; he has named Microsoft and Elon Musk as potential buyers, even as others have raised their hands.
自签署这项命令以来，特朗普就未来几周可能发生的情况给出了一连串有时相互矛盾的暗示：他说他希望出现一场竞购战；他说，美国应该拥有该应用的一部分；他把微软和埃隆·马斯克列为可能的买家，尽管还有其他人表示了兴趣。

But the mechanics of a potential sale are still murky.
然而，潜在出售的机制仍不明确。

ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, has said for years that it cannot sell the app, in part because the Chinese government would not allow the export of its all-important algorithm.
TikTok的所有者字节跳动多年来一直表示无法出售该应用程序，部分原因是中国政府不会允许其最重要的算法出口。

And it’s not clear TikTok’s American investors are interested in a sale, either.
而且，TikTok的美国投资者是否有兴趣购买也不明确。

“There are a number of alternatives we can talk to President Trump and his team about that are short of selling the company that allow the company to continue to operate, maybe with a change of control of some kind, but short of having to sell,” Bill Ford, chief executive of General Atlantic, told CNBC. General Atlantic, a private equity firm, is an investor in ByteDance.
泛大西洋投资集团首席执行官比尔·福特对CNBC表示，“我们可以与特朗普总统及其团队讨论一些替代方案，这些方案不涉及公司出售，却能允许公司继续运营，可能会有某种形式的控制权变更，但不必出售。”泛大西洋投资集团是一家私募股权公司，它是字节跳动的投资者。

Here is what we know about what happens next:
以下是我们所知接下來会发生的事：

Who wants to buy TikTok?
谁想收购TikTok？

Mr. Trump has floated a number of names in public recently, including Mr. Musk, Microsoft and Oracle. In 2020, Microsoft, Oracle and Walmart tried to buy TikTok before those talks fell apart.
特朗普最近在公开场合提到了一些名字，包括马斯克、微软和甲骨文。2020年的时候，微软、甲骨文和沃尔玛都曾试图收购TikTok，但谈判最终破裂。

Other potential bidders include Jesse Tinsley, the founder of the payroll firm Employer.com, who has put together a consortium that includes the chief executive of Roblox, the video game platform.
其他潜在的竞标者包括薪酬管理服务公司Employer.com的创始人杰西·廷斯利，他组建了一个财团，其中包括视频游戏平台Roblox的首席执行官。

The “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary is part of a bid from the billionaire Frank McCourt, who has been seeking to buy TikTok without its coveted algorithm. His bankers’ valuation of $20 billion is considered to be far lower than what TikTok could fetch with its recommendation technology.
真人秀节目《创智赢家》(Shark Tank)的明星嘉宾凯文·奥利里参与了亿万富翁弗兰克·麦考特的竞标，后者一直在寻求购买TikTok，但不包括其备受追捧的算法。他的投行对TikTok的估值为200亿美元，这个数字远低于TikTok与其推荐技术一起出售可能获得的估值。

The YouTube star Mr. Beast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has also been in talks with “several potential bidders” to be a strategic partner in an acquisition, according to Matthew Hiltzik, a spokesman. (His role would not be to fund a purchase, as some reports have speculated.)
YouTube网红Mr. Beast（本名吉米·唐纳森）的发言人马修·希尔茨基表示，他也一直在与“几位潜在竞标者”进行谈判，寻求成为收购的战略合作伙伴。（他的角色并非如某些报道所猜测的那样是为收购提供资金。）

Mr. Musk, of course, bought Twitter, now called X, in 2022. And the Chinese government may be more willing to sell to him, given the ample business Tesla does in China. But the billionaire has not commented on whether he wants to buy TikTok.
当然还有马斯克。他在2022年收购了Twitter，也就是现在的X。鉴于特斯拉在中国拥有大量业务，中国政府可能更愿意将TikTok卖给他。但这位亿万富翁并未表示他是否有意买下TikTok。

Microsoft declined to comment. Oracle and Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
微软拒绝置评。甲骨文和马斯克没有回应置评请求。

TikTok and ByteDance have not commented on whether they are engaged in sale talks.
TikTok和字节跳动尚未就是否正在进行出售谈判发表评论。

Who will lead negotiations for a deal and why?
谁将主导交易谈判？为什么？

Mr. Trump is holding court on deal talks, and it is unlikely that anyone tries to strike a deal without a fair degree of confidence he would support a transaction. Mr. Ford of General Atlantic said at Davos that he would be negotiating with Mr. Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who leads the interagency panel that reviews deals for national security concerns.
特朗普正在主导交易谈判，如果没有相当程度的信心会得到他的支持，任何人都不太可能去尝试达成交易。泛大西洋投资集团的福特在达沃斯表示，他将与特朗普和财政部长斯科特·贝森特进行谈判，后者领导着一个负责审查国家安全交易的跨部门小组。

Mr. Ford said Mr. Bessent and ByteDance’s board and management would be a part of the talks, and described his firm as “ready to engage.”
福特表示，贝森特和字节跳动的董事会及管理层将参与谈判，并称他的公司“已经准备好参与”。

It will also be important for dealmakers to feel confident they have support from the Chinese government. China has resisted relinquishing control of TikTok. It updated its export control rules in 2020, allowing it to block the export of the algorithm that is key to making TikTok work. While some potential buyers, like Mr. McCourt, have said they want to buy TikTok without the algorithm, they would be buying a significantly diminished product.
对于交易者来说，有信心获得中国政府的支持也很重要。中国一直抵制放弃对TikTok的控制权。它在2020年更新了出口管制规定，使其能够阻止TikTok得以成功运作的关键算法的出口。尽管麦考特等潜在买家表示，他们希望仅购买TikTok，而不包括算法，但是这样买下的将是一款大幅缩水的产品。

What has Trump said about what he wants?
特朗普想要一个怎样的交易？

Any deal will need Mr. Trump’s approval, and he has said he is eager to get one done. He told reporters last month that there had been “a lot of interest” in TikTok.
任何交易都需要得到特朗普的批准，他表示他渴望达成交易。上个月，他对记者表示，TikTok引起了“很多兴趣”。

He has outlined the contours of the kind of deal he wants to strike: “What I’m thinking about saying to somebody is buy it and give half to the United States of America,” he said.
他描述了自己心目中该交易的大致样子：“我想对某人说的是，买下它，然后把一半交给美国，”他说。

On Monday, Mr. Trump also signed an executive order aimed at creating a U.S. sovereign wealth fund, and suggested the fund could be a potential investor in the deal with TikTok.
周一，特朗普还签署了一项创建美国主权财富基金的行政命令，并暗示该基金可能成为TikTok交易中的潜在投资者。

It is unclear, though, whether such a structure would solve the national security concerns that led Congress to pass the law, which include fears that ByteDance could hand over sensitive TikTok user data to the Chinese government, or that Beijing could use the app to spread propaganda. It is also unclear in what form the United States could become an investor.
不过，目前尚不清楚这样的架构能否化解导致国会通过法律的国家安全疑虑，包括担心字节跳动可能会将敏感的TikTok用户数据交给中国政府，或者北京可能会利用该应用程序进行宣传。目前还不清楚美国会以何种形式成为该应用的投资者。

The law makes it illegal for companies to update or distribute TikTok in the United States unless there is a “qualified divestiture” of the app from ByteDance. It specifically says TikTok can’t maintain an operational relationship with any Chinese-owned or Chinese-controlled company.
该法律规定，除非字节跳动对TikTok进行“合格的剥离”，否则任何公司在美国更新或发行TikTok都是非法行为。法律特别指出，TikTok不能与任何中国拥有或控制的公司保持运营关系。

What have investors said?
投资者对此有何看法？

The law says TikTok can no longer be controlled by a Chinese company or rely on a Chinese company for its recommendation algorithm or for data sharing.
这项法律规定，TikTok不能再由中国公司控制，也不能依赖中国公司进行推荐算法或数据共享。

But as the comments from Mr. Ford of General Atlantic indicate, investors are exploring options that would sidestep an outright sale. A deal forced by political pressure would most likely require them to take a steep cut on the value of their investments, analysts say.
但正如泛大西洋投资集团的福特所言，投资者正在探索绕过直接出售的选择。分析人士表示，迫于政治压力而达成的交易很可能需要他们大幅削减投资价值。

But it is not clear that the other options, which could include bringing on new investors or having U.S. investors swap their investment in ByteDance for a stake in U.S. TikTok, would address the national security issues identified by the law. The law bars a person or people in China from holding, directly or indirectly, more than 20 percent of TikTok.
但尚不清楚其他选项是否能够解决法律所确定的国家安全问题，这些选项可能包括引入新投资者，或者让美国投资者将其在字节跳动的投资换成美国TikTok的股份。该法律禁止中国的个人或集体直接或间接持有20%以上TikTok的股份。

What could stand in the way of a sale?
什么因素可能阻碍出售？

There’s a critical question that even TikTok has raised in court filings: Can TikTok’s U.S. business operate if it is cut off from its global infrastructure? TikTok said such a sale was not “commercially, technologically or legally feasible.” That is in part because China is unlikely to allow any U.S. buyer to take over TikTok’s algorithm. It is also because much of TikTok’s technological infrastructure is housed outside the United States.
有一个关键问题，连TikTok都在法庭文件中提出过：如果TikTok的美国业务与其全球基础设施断开联系，是否还能正常运营？TikTok表示，这种出售方式“在商业、技术或法律上都不可行”。部分是因为中国不太可能允许任何美国买家接管TikTok的算法，也是因为TikTok的大部分技术基础设施都在美国境外。

There is also the question of whether TikTok remains as desirable as it was in 2020. Large technology companies like Microsoft, which sought to buy TikTok in 2020, have since committed to spending billions on the race for artificial intelligence. A TikTok acquisition, then, would be a significant change in strategy, according to analysts.
还有一个问题是，TikTok是否依然像2020年那样令买家垂涎。微软等大型科技公司曾在2020年试图收购TikTok，但后来又承诺在人工智能领域投入数百亿美元。因此，分析师认为，收购TikTok将代表战略上的重大改变。

Buying any social media company is often a tricky proposition, given how quickly it can fall out of favor. Snap, once extremely popular among teenagers, now trades for below the price it sold for in its initial public offering in 2017 — an example of how drastically teenagers, and investors, can turn.
收购任何一家社交媒体公司往往都是一个棘手的问题，因为它可能很快就不再流行。曾经在青少年中极受欢迎的Snap现在的交易价格低于其2017年首次公开募股时的价格，这就是一个例子，表明青少年和投资者的兴趣可能发生巨大变化。

Buying TikTok would also be expensive, making it a purchase only a handful of companies could make on their own. And those that are large enough to do so, like Google and Meta, would probably face antitrust scrutiny if they bought the app.
收购TikTok的成本也很高，只有少数几家公司能够独立承担这笔费用。而那些足够大的公司，如谷歌和Meta，如果收购该应用，很可能会面临反垄断审查。

Will TikTok be the same if it sells?
如果出售，TikTok还会和以前一样吗？

We don’t know. A sale might solve TikTok’s legal problems, but it could also change the app that users know today.
我们不知道答案。出售可能会解决TikTok的法律问题，但也可能会改变这个用户熟悉的应用程序。

Some TikTok users have suggested in the past that, in the same way X transformed under Mr. Musk’s ownership, TikTok could change under a new leader. In the case of X, many users and advertisers fled the app.
一些TikTok用户过去曾经提出，就像X被马斯克收购后发生了转变一样，TikTok也可能在新领导者之下发生变化。就X而言，许多用户和广告商都离开了这款应用。