TikTok owner Bytedance has chosen Oracle as a technology partner to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations, following Microsoft’s statement that it had been rejected by ByteDance as a buyer.
As part of the deal, Oracle plans to address the national security concerns that Donald Trump’s administration has raised over the Chinese company’s ownership of TikTok.
US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, confirmed on Monday that the Trump administration would this week review a deal between Oracle and the US operations of TikTok.
ByteDance has been in talks to sell TikTok’s US business since Donald Trump threatened last month to ban the service if it was not sold. The president’s executive order in August gave until 15 September or it would be shut down in the US. It effectively set a deadline for a potential pressured sale of part of the tech company to an American bidder.
Oracle is best known as an enterprise software provider. Its cloud computing business could benefit from gaining TikTok as a customer. Any deal would require the support of the US and Chinese governments and Beijing has taken steps that suggest it may block a full disposal.
It was unclear whether Mr Trump would approve of a partnership arrangement such as the one ByteDance has discussed with Oracle. The president has called for a full sale of TikTok’s US operations to satisfy national security concerns.
“From our standpoint, we’ll need to make sure that the code is, one, secure, Americans’ data is secure, that the phones are secure and we’ll be looking to have discussions with Oracle over the next few days with our technical teams,” Mnuchin said.
