Can TikTok do it again?

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( Hi all, this is Zheping in Hong Kong. It’s already been a big week for tech acquisitions. On Monday, Facebook Inc. said it would [buy Kustomer Inc.](, in a transaction valued at more than $1 billion. And on Tuesday, Salesforce.com Inc. could announce a [deal to acquire Slack Technologies Inc.](, which has a market cap of $24.5 billion. But one of the year’s largest tech deals has been put off so long you might have forgotten about it: TikTok’s latest deadline to sell its U.S. operations to American investors is this Friday. Chinese parent ByteDance Inc. now has only a few days to meet that deadline and close a deal that [could value]( its most successful global asset at $60 billion. ByteDance is set to sell a large stake of its short-form video phenomenon to Walmart Inc. and Oracle Corp. in a hastily compiled agreement, sketched out before the U.S. presidential election. Another possibility, however, is that nothing will happen. Multiple deadlines have already come and gone since the U.S. alleged improper closeness between ByteDance and the Chinese government, and demanded that TikTok hand over control to U.S. investors. The deal was set to be finalized on Nov. 12, a date granted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which examines national security threats. But that was pushed back by 15 days and then a further week by CFIUS, allowing the companies more time to negotiate final terms. On Friday, TikTok could finally solidify the transaction, it could fail to do so and face repercussions enforced by the U.S. Justice Department -- or the company could manage to further drag out the process. Much of the urgency around the deal stemmed from President Donald Trump's promises to ban the app, and his administration has recently [pulled back from its threats](. At the same time, judges have granted preliminary injunctions against a series of TikTok bans. Those cases could lapse when President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, unless he decides to defend Trump’s orders in court. Another reason an agreement might not be finalized this week: Any deal also faces potential roadblocks in China. At the end of September, ByteDance submitted an application in Beijing for permission to export technology used in TikTok, and while regulators were supposed to return a verdict within 30 business days -- meaning early November -- there’s still no word on how it went. For observers, there have been some upsides to the pitched legal battle now raging over TikTok. ByteDance’s [court filings]( offered a rare look at its behind-the-scenes dealings with CFIUS as well as some of TikTok’s private operational metrics. ByteDance, for instance, spent more than $300 million on U.S. advertising for TikTok in 2019, according to the company’s Nov. 10 filing. (That’s a 10th of its profit for the year, sources [have told us](.) And among TikTok’s more than 100 million American users, half of them use the app on a daily basis, ByteDance [told the court](. If ByteDance gets another extension, it wouldn’t be the only good news for the startup this month. The company has [been in talks]( to raise new funding at a valuation of $180 billion -- a price tag that would make it the world’s largest startup about three times over, according to CB Insights data. It’s preparing a [Hong Kong listing]( of its lucrative Chinese products, including TikTok’s domestic twin, Douyin. And it keeps expanding into new locales, like [Singapore](. As the U.S. continues to tinker, adjust and delay its policies around TikTok, ByteDance keeps getting bigger.—[Zheping Huang](mailto:zhuang245@bloomberg.net) If you read one thing DeepMind makes a breakthrough. Alphabet's artificial intelligence unit DeepMind has solved a decades-long mystery in the field of biology, the company said Monday, getting closer to being able to predict the structure of proteins. The finding may have [big potential payoffs]( for drug discovery. Paid Post [Building Momentum: How Efficiency Powers Business]( From hospitals to airport tarmacs, from power plants to software studios, GE and its customers are proving that efficiency is the secret to successful businesses. [For more stories about efficiency, subscribe to the GE Brief](. GE And here’s what you need to know in global technology news As Airbnb and DoorDash inch closer to the public markets, both companies are likely to target higher-than-expected valuations. Airbnb is aiming for a range of $30 billion to $33 billion. And DoorDash is planning a range of about $25 billion to $28 billion, [Bloomberg reported](. Apple hired a prominent venture capitalist to work on [the App Store](. Zoom beat analyst estimates for the current quarter but shares slumped Monday after the company [reported a slight slowdown]( in its massive pandemic-era growth. The world's largest meal delivery service, China-based Meituan, reported a 29% rise in quarterly revenue as the country's [economy recovers](.  Like Fully Charged? | [Get unlimited access to Bloomberg.com](, where you'll find trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters.  You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022