TikTok's US fate reportedly rests on a brawl between two senior White House advisers

* The confused messages from the Trump administration about the fate of ByteDance-owned TikTok may stem from a disagreement between two senior White House advisers. * According to The Washington Post, trade adviser Peter Navarro pushed for an outright ban of TikTok, while Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin wanted a sale. * The pair ended up in a "shouting match" in front of President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in late July, according to the report. * President Trump has told TikTok, whose parent company is Chinese, that it must sell its US business to an American tech firm or investors, or face a ban from mid-September. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Donald Trump's top advisers reportedly can't agree on what should happen to TikTok, whose fate in the US currently hangs in the balance. According to a Washington Post report, citing anonymous witnesses, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and trade adviser Peter Navarro had a "shouting match" in front of President Trump in the Oval Office in late July over the short video app's future. Navarro reportedly pushed for a full ban on TikTok, which is owned by Chinese startup ByteDance, and accused Mnuchin of being too gentle on China. Mnuchin wanted TikTok's business to be sold to Microsoft or another US bidder — he has already held talks with Microsoft, the report said. This "knockdown" brawl may partially explain some of the confused messages from the Trump administration on TikTok over the last month. The administration signaled in July that it might ban the app. However, news emerged at the beginning of August that Microsoft might buy parts of TikTok's business, sealing the app off from its Chinese owners. On the same day, Trump said that he would ban TikTok altogether. Microsoft then said it had held talks with Trump and would continue discussions with TikTok. Trump upped the pressure again, issuing an executive order on August 7 that banned US individuals or companies from doing business with TikTok's parent firm ByteDance. The order takes effect on September 20, effectively giving ByteDance a deadline to negotiate with Microsoft or other bidders. It isn't clear that Microsoft will successfully acquire TikTok's business. Other bidders reportedly interested include existing ByteDance backer Sequoia Capital and Twitter. TikTok, meanwhile, has threatened to sue the US over the executive order, saying the Trump administration had directly interfered with negotiations between private businesses. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Why YETI coolers are so expensive
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PayPal parts with top advertising executive after shifting its marketing strategy during the pandemic

* PayPal's chief creative officer Steve Simpson, its top advertising executive, left the company after about a year. * The move came after PayPal shifted its marketing strategy during the coronavirus pandemic, placing less emphasis on the brand and more on catering to small businesses, said a source with direct knowledge of the marketing operation. * Simpson's departure followed that of CMO and former Apple executive Allison Johnson in May. Both "decided to leave PayPal" as the company streamlines its global marketing functions, according to a PayPal spokeswoman. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. PayPal's highest-ranking ad executive Steve Simpson left earlier this month after just over a year as part of a restructuring of its global marketing business. Simpson, who was chief creative officer, was hired to make high-minded ad campaigns to help PayPal stand out from competitors like Square, Stripe, and Apple Pay. But this strategy chan

Neighbor, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup that wants to be the Airbnb of self-storage, has started partnering with landlords to turn empty offices into spaces for people's stuff

* The Airbnb of self-storage, Neighbor, has seen a surge in demand as a result of the pandemic, according to CEO and cofounder Joseph Woodbury. * The company announced a partnership Tuesday with landlord and operator Bridgeton Holdings to fill vacant office space with self-storage in San Francisco and eventually across the country. * This comes as the office market has taken a big hit from the coronavirus pandemic. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The coronavirus has accelerated the trend of using under-utilized real estate for other purposes, like turning retail storefronts and parking lots into distribution hubs for e-commerce fulfillment and redeveloping malls into communities by adding residential units. One area of commercial real estate that's in high demand is self-storage. The average spend on construction of new facilities per year jumped to $5 billion in 2018 from $1 billion in 2015. With the coronavirus prompting moves, a likely trigger f

The machines USPS is removing from distribution centers can sort more than 36,000 pieces of mail per hour. Here's how they work.

* The United States Postal Service has been deactivating mail-sorting machines around the US ahead of the surge expected from mail-in voting this fall, reports say. * Each machine can sort up to 36,000 pieces of mail per hour. * The machines sort letters, postcards, and other mail by bar code. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Mail-sorting machines used by the United States Postal Service (USPS) have been dismantled and removed from distribution centers around the country, according to postal workers. They told Motherboard that at least 19 machines were removed without explanation. An internal USPS letter from June included a plan to remove hundreds of more mail-sorting machines this year. Postal Workers Union members and some Democratic politicians have expressed concerns about changes to the USPS under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Trump donor who started his position this summer. President Trump has attacked the USPS and claimed that voting

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