Trump’s TikTok plan takes shape as Oracle steps into the spotlight

A Chinese internet technology company, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has few weeks to save TikTok as Trump holds off on action against the video app.

Reports suggest that software giant Oracle may become the centre of focus in a potential TikTok deal.

The temporary delay will give ByteDance time to sell its well-known social media platform. However, if it does not find a buyer for TikTok’s U.S. operations, then the ban passed by Congress will take effect on April 5.

Oracle moves forward, becoming the centre of focus in the TikTok deal

Vice President JD Vance told reporters that it was almost certain that a high-level agreement would address U.S. national security issues by early April.

In addition, President Trump said last weekend that four bidders had shown up, but he did not name them. 

Names proposed earlier by Trump and others included Microsoft (MSFT), AI startup Perplexity, a coalition of billionaire investors, and even the U.S. government. However, Oracle’s name kept coming up.

Notably, Oracle previously attempted to acquire TikTok in 2020 during Trump’s first term but failed. Despite this, the company remains deeply involved with TikTok as its primary cloud provider.

In 2022, Tiktok began directing its U.S. traffic through Oracle’s cloud as part of a “Project Texas” overhaul to comply with U.S. regulations on domestic data storage.

A report published last week revealed that Oracle recently became a top candidate to help TikTok escape its current situation. However, the executives of ByteDance are said to want to continue to be actively involved in TikTok’s business operations in any such agreement.

Bloomberg separately reported that the White House is considering a deal with Oracle to give the tech giant a stake in the company in exchange for protecting American data on TikTok while leaving ByteDance control of the app’s algorithm.

On the other hand, TikTok and its CEO, Shou Zi Chew, have repeatedly resisted sharing the app’s proprietary algorithm. A request for comment from Oracle and TikTok was not answered.

On Friday, Reuters presented another Oracle scenario stating that while Oracle safeguarded U.S. user data to prevent China from accessing it, the largest non-Chinese investors in ByteDance may increase their current holdings and purchase TikTok’s U.S. operations as part of a new company.

In this case, Chinese ownership in the new company would drop under the crucial 20% level to avoid the U.S. ban. Among these investors are General Atlantic, owned by Bill Ford, and Susquehanna International Group, owned by Jeff Yass. 

Vice President JD Vance remains optimistic that an agreement on TikTok will be reached 

Although Politico reported earlier that Oracle is “accelerating talks” with the White House on TikTok and that company representatives were scheduled to visit Capitol Hill last week to meet with lawmakers regarding the negotiations, reports indicated that no deal had yet been finalized on the platform.

In an interview with NBC on Friday, Vance said that although an agreement on TikTok would probably be reached by April 5, it was still unclear whether the deal would be finalized by then. 

He highlighted that similar deals, which were much smaller and required less capital, took months to close.

“I think that the outlines of this thing will be very clear by April 5,” Vance said. “The question is whether we can get all the paper done.” 

Since the Chinese government needed to approve any measure in which ByteDance divests from TikTok, one significant issue that was reportedly still up for debate was whether or not it would approve any final TikTok deal.

However, China has recently become less aggressive, stating that such business deals should be determined independently per market principles. The Chinese government and ByteDance have long opposed any attempts to sell TikTok.

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