“It doesn't have to be this painful for ByteDance,” U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat and bill co-sponsor, recently posted on X. “They could make it a lot easier on themselves by simply divesting @tiktok_us. It's their choice.”
But it's not going to be as simple as lawmakers are making it sound, according to experts.
WHO WOULD BUY TIKTOK?
While some people have voiced an interest in buying TikTok's U.S. business — among them “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary — there are a number of challenges including a 6-month deadline to get it done.
“Somebody would have to actually be ready to shell out the large amount of money that this product and system is worth,” said Stanford University researcher Graham Webster, who studies Chinese technology policy and U.S.-China relations. “But even if somebody has deep enough pockets and is ready to go into negotiating to purchase, this sort of matchmaking on acquisitions is not quick.”
Big tech companies could afford it but would likely face intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators in both the U.S. and China. Then again, if the bill actually becomes law and survives First Amendment court challenges, it could make TikTok cheaper to buy.
“One of the main effects of the legislation would be to decrease the sale price,” said Matt Perault, director of the University of North Carolina's Center on Technology Policy, which gets funding from TikTok and other tech companies. “As you approach that 180-day clock, the pressure on the company to sell or risk being banned entirely would be high, which would mean probably the acquirers could get it at a lower price.”
U.S. lawmakers are threatening to ban TikTok but also say they are giving its Chinese parent company a chance to keep it running.
The premise of a bipartisan bill headed for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives is that TikTok fans in the U.S. can keep scrolling through their favorite social media app so long as Beijing-based ByteDance gives up on owning it.
GE Power (formerly known as GE Energy) is an American energy technology company, owned by General Electric.
Structure[edit]As of July 2019, GE Power is divided into the following divisions:
Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Founded | 2008; 16 years ago |
Defunct | 2012; 12 years ago |
Revenue | US$37.1 billion (2009/10)[2] |
Number of employees | Approximately 82,000 (2011)[2] |
Parent | General Electric |
Divisions | GE Energy Management GE Oil and Gas GE Power and Water |
Website | www.gepower.com |
GE Energy was a division of General Electric and was headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.[3]
In 2008, a company-wide reorganization prompted by financial losses led to the unit's formation from companies within GE Infrastructure division. Before this reorganization, GE had nine decades of history in industrial power production [4] including building a record-capacity three-phase generator for Niagara Falls in 1918 [5] and installation of generators at the Grand Coulee Dam in 1942.[6]
On March 29, 2011, GE Energy announced plans to acquire a 90% stake in the French company Converteam for $3.2 billion.[7][8]
In July 2012, John Krenicki announced that he would be stepping down as president of GE Energy, and the business would be broken into three new GE businesses consisting of the following divisions:[9][2]
After lengthy negotiations, on 2 November 2015, GE finalized the acquisition of Alstom's power generation and electricity transmission business, that were integrated into GE Power & Water. Later, the newly acquired Hydro and Wind business of Alstom, together with GE's own Wind Energy division, were spun-off to create a new subsidiary called GE Renewable Energy.
In 2015, GE Power garnered press attention when a model 9FB gas turbine in Texas was shut down for two months due to the break of a turbine blade. This model uses similar blade technology to GE's newest and most efficient model, the HA. After the break, GE developed new protective coatings and heat treatment methods. Gas turbines represent a significant portion of GE Power's revenue, and also represent a significant portion of the power generation fleet of several utility companies in the United States. Chubu Electric of Japan and Électricité de France also had units that were impacted. Initially, GE did not realize the turbine blade issue of the 9FB unit would impact the new HA units.[10]
Forced by a wave of very negative financial results, the company went through a series of disinvestments and reorganization in 2017.
In May 2017, GE Oil & Gas was combined with Baker Hughes Incorporated to create Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE), a new tier-1 business inside the parent group.
In June 2017, GE Energy Connections merged again with GE Power & Water, to become the present GE Power. The new combined business unit is led by Scott Strazik.[11]
Swiss-based ABB announced in September 2017, a $2.6 billion deal with GE Power to acquire the Industrial Solutions division.[12]
In October 2017, GE Power sold its Water & Process Technology division to French-based utility company Suez for a total of $3.4 billion.[13]
In June 2018, the private equity firm Advent International agreed to buy GE's distributed power unit for $3.25 billion.[14]
In 2019, in a strategic realignment to cut costs and satisfy the surging demand in the renewable power market, it was decided to merge the Grid Solutions portfolio into the Renewable Power business.[15] That move took GE assets on electrical transmission grids, battery storage and solar inverters away from GE Power.[citation needed]
In June 2019, GE Steam Power started manufacturing half-speed steam turbines for the four Rosatom VVER-1200s being built at Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, Turkey's first nuclear power plant. This is part of a joint venture established in 2007, between General Electric and Rosatom subsidiary Atomenergomash, called AAEM Turbine Technology, to supply equipment for VVER nuclear power plants. The joint venture includes the manufacture of heat exchange equipment in Russia. GE has installed about half of all nuclear power plant steam turbines around the world.[16] [17]
In November 2022, Électricité de France (EDF) agreed the acquisition of GE Steam Power's nuclear activities, including the manufacture of non-nuclear equipment for new nuclear power plants including steam turbines and the maintenance and upgrade of existing nuclear power plants outside America.[18]
In 2021 plan to splitting GE into three new public companies: GE Vernova, GE HealthCare and GE Aerospace was announced. GE Power along with GE Digital, GE Renewable Energy, and GE Energy Financial Services will come together as GE Vernova.[19]
In 2023 GE announces planned spin-off date for beginning of second quarter of 2024. [20]
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892 and incorporated in the state of New York and headquartered in Boston. The company has several divisions, including aerospace, power, renewable energy, digital industry, additive manufacturing, and venture capital and finance.[2][3][4]
In 2020, GE ranked among the Fortune 500 as the 33rd largest firm in the United States by gross revenue.[5] In 2023, the company was ranked 64th in the Forbes Global 2000.[6] In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 20 as the 14th most profitable company, but later very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed.[7][8][9] Two employees of GE – Irving Langmuir (1932) and Ivar Giaever (1973) – have been awarded the Nobel Prize.[10]
On November 9, 2021, the company announced it would divide itself into three public companies. On July 18, 2022, GE unveiled the brand names of the companies it will create through its planned separation: GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare and GE Vernova.[11][12] The new companies will be focused on aerospace, healthcare, and energy (renewable energy, power, and digital). The first spin-off of GE HealthCare was finalized on January 4, 2023;[13] GE continues to hold 13.5% of shares and intends to sell the remaining over time.[14] This will be followed by the spin-off of GE's portfolio of energy businesses which plan to become GE Vernova in 2024.[15] Following these transactions, GE will be an aviation-focused company; GE Aerospace will be the legal successor of the original GE.[16][17]
NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and doing business as simply NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is a subsidiary of Comcast and is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan in New York City.[5]
NBCUniversal is primarily involved in the media and entertainment industry. The company is named for its two most significant divisions, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) – one of the United States' Big Three television networks – and the major Hollywood film studio Universal Pictures. It also has a significant presence in broadcasting through a portfolio of domestic and international properties, including USA, Syfy, Bravo, E!, Telemundo (Spanish), Universal Kids, the streaming service Peacock and ownership stakes in Snap and Vox Media. Via its Universal Destinations & Experiences division, NBCUniversal is also the third-largest operator of amusement parks in the world.[6] Since 2018, its sister company under Comcast's control, Sky Group Limited, holds its media and telecommunication assets.
NBCUniversal was formed on May 11, 2004, beginning on November 8, 2004 as NBC Universal, Inc., with the merger of General Electric (GE)'s NBC with Vivendi Universal's film and television subsidiary Vivendi Universal Entertainment, after GE had acquired 80% of the subsidiary, giving Vivendi a 20% share of the new company.[7][8] In 2011, Comcast attained 51% and thereby the control of newly reformed NBCUniversal, by purchasing shares from GE, while GE bought out Vivendi. Since 2013, the company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast, which bought GE's ownership stake.[9]
Comcast Corporation (simply known as Comcast, and formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings, stylized in all caps as COMCAST),[note 1] incorporated and headquartered in Philadelphia, is an American multinational telecommunications and media conglomerate.[8] The corporation is the second-largest broadcasting and cable television company in the world by revenue (behind AT&T). It is the third-largest pay-TV company, the second-largest cable TV company by subscribers, and the largest home Internet service provider in the United States. In 2023, the company was ranked 51st in the Forbes Global 2000.[9] Comcast is additionally the nation's third-largest home telephone service provider. It provides services to U.S. residential and commercial customers in 40 states and the District of Columbia.[10] As the owner of the international media company NBCUniversal since 2011, Comcast is also a high-volume producer of feature films for theatrical exhibition and television programming, and a theme park operator. It is the world's third-largest telecommunications company by revenue.
Comcast owns and operates the Xfinity residential cable communications business segment and division; Comcast Business, a commercial services provider; and Xfinity Mobile, an MVNO of Verizon. Through NBCUniversal, it also owns and operates over-the-air national broadcast network channels such as NBC, Telemundo, TeleXitos, and Cozi TV; multiple cable-only channels such as MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Syfy, Oxygen, Bravo, and E!; the film studio Universal Pictures; the VOD streaming service Peacock; animation studios DreamWorks Animation, Illumination, and Universal Animation Studios; and Universal Destinations & Experiences. It also has significant holdings in digital distribution, such as thePlatform, which it acquired in 2006; and ad-tech company FreeWheel, which it acquired in 2014. Since October 2018, it has also been the parent company of Sky Group.[11]
Comcast has been criticized and put under intense public scrutiny for a variety of reasons. Its customer satisfaction ratings were among the lowest in the cable industry during the years 2008–2010.[12][13] It has violated net neutrality practices in the past, and, despite its commitment to a narrow definition of net neutrality,[14] critics advocate a definition that precludes any distinction between Comcast's private network services and the rest of the Internet.[15] Critics also point out a lack of competition in the vast majority of Comcast's service areas; in particular, the limited competition among cable providers.[16] Given its negotiating power as a large ISP, some suspect that it could leverage paid peering agreements to unfairly influence end-user connection speeds. Its ownership of both content production (in NBCUniversal) and distribution (as an ISP) has raised antitrust concerns. These issues and others led to Comcast being dubbed "The Worst Company in America" by The Consumerist in 2010 and 2014.[17][18]