Trump’s executive order against Tencent will not affect its games businesses

US Donald Trump has signed two executive orders – one that will prohibit Americans from doing business with TikTok-owner ByteDance, and the second prohibits transactions related to the app WeChat, owned by Tencent.

The news, which comes from Forbes, immediately set off concerns that Tencent’s considerable number of video games businesses would be affected by the order.

https://twitter.com/SamAugustDean/status/1291576813685108736

According to LA Times reporter Sam Dean, a White House official has confirmed that the executive order only blocks WeChat-related transactions, meaning that Tencent’s video games businesses remain unaffected.

As Dean states in a later Tweet, this was almost impossible to distinguish from the executive order itself, leading some to worry that Tencent’s subsidiary companies, such as Riot Games, or companies it owns varying stakes in, such as Epic Games, Activision-Blizzard, Supercell, Grinding Gear Games, Netmarble and others.