ByteDance is giving its 60,000 employees cash bonuses after working 'endless hours' amid TikTok ban 'noise'

• ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, is giving out bonuses this month to all of its more than 60,000 employees around the globe.
• In a memo first obtained by Bloomberg, ByteDance said the bonuses are intended to thank everyone for their work amid the company's challenging last few months.
• The company has faced upheavel this summer as it faces off against the US government's threats to ban TikTok over its ties to China. Now, ByteDance is close to a deal to sell off TikTok's US assets to avoid such a ban.

TikTok owner ByteDance is reportedly handing out cash bonuses to its 60,000-plus employees worldwide as the company faces the threats of countrywide bans and the sale of its growing US business.

ByteDance told staff that eligible employees will be getting a bonus, equivalent to half of one month's salary, Bloomberg first reported. In an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg, ByteDance said the bonuses are intended to "thank everyone for their efforts and dedication" as the company faces challenges brought on by politics and COVID-19.

A ByteDance spokesperson confirmed the accuracy of Bloomberg's story to Business Insider. The bonus announcement comes after ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming said in an earlier companywide letter, seen by Reuters, that employees had been working "endless hours" amid the surrounding "noise" of TikTok's uncertain future.

"Over the past few months, we have been working together to overcome challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and changing macro environment," ByteDance said in the memo, obtained by Bloomberg. "To thank everyone for their efforts and dedication, we will be issuing a cash bonus to all eligible employees."

Full-time employees who worked at least 26 days during July and August are eligible for the bonuses.

TikTok and ByteDance have found themselves facing upheaval since the start of the pandemic, but not because of the suffering of its platforms' popularity or its userbase's interest. Instead, concerns over ByteDance's headquarters in China became the centerpiece of a political battle between TikTok and the US government, and the future of the app's more than 100 million US monthly users has been thrown in jeopardy.

After months or back-and-forth, ByteDance is reportedly days away from selling off its US assets to an American tech company to appease the US government's national security concerns and Donald Trump's threat to ban the app nationwide. The race for a stake in TikTok's assets — a deal valued between $20 billion and $50 billion — has surfaced names like Microsoft, Oracle, Walmart, and SoftBank as potential buyers. The frontrunners in the bidding war appears to be two groups: a joint offer between Microsoft and Walmart that's backed by ByteDance's CEO, and another from Oracle that has the support of President Trump and a group of ByteDance's US investors.

However, talks for TikTok's acquisition reportedly stalled last week on the back of the China's new restrictions on exports, which require companies obtain a license for sales from the Chinese government and state officials the power to veto such business — like ByteDance's sale of TikTok's assets.