Oracle Reportedly Agrees Deal for TikTok's US Operations, But Chinese Media Cast Doubt on Any Sale

Amid reports Monday morning that Oracle has won the battle with Microsoft to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations, China's state-run English TV channel is claiming that no sale with any U.S. buyer will go ahead (via Reuters).

tiktok logo

ByteDance will not sell TikTok's U.S. operations to Oracle Corp ORCL.N or Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and will not give the source code for the video platform to any U.S. buyers, China's state-run English television channel CGTN reported on Monday, citing sources.

People familiar with the matter told Reuters that ByteDance abandoned the sale of TikTok in the United States and decided to pursue a partnership with Oracle in hopes of avoiding a U.S. ban while appeasing the Chinese government.

ByteDance declined to comment on CGTN’s report.

A source also told the South China Morning Post that the tech upstart has decided not to sell or transfer the source code behind its popular video app.

The development follows a report from The Wall Street Journal on Sunday evening that claimed database software and cloud systems giant Oracle had closed the deal moments after Microsoft announced it had been rejected. The deal reportedly stopped short of an outright acquisition of all assets and intellectual property, with TikTok considering Oracle as a "trusted tech partner" instead.

In a blog post following the news, Microsoft wrote:

"ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok's US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users while protecting national security interests. To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation, and we made these principles clear in our August statement. We look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas."

Microsoft was originally regarded as the frontrunner in acquisition talks with TikTok's China-based parent company, ByteDance, and provided a formal proposal that would have involved the purchase of TikTok's operations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Bloomberg on Monday cited sources claiming that terms being discussed between ByteDance and Oracle were "still evolving," but that one of the options being explored could see Oracle take a stake in a newly formed U.S. business while serving as TikTok's U.S. technology partner and housing the video app's data in Oracle's cloud servers.

Offers from both parties reportedly valued the U.S. business at about $25 billion, but that was said to be before Chinese officials weighed in with new rules imposing limits on technology exports.

Any deal would still need to be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a U.S. government group chaired by the Treasury Secretary that studies corporate mergers for national security reasons.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in mid-August demanding that ByteDance sell its U.S. operations within 90 days. Trump required ByteDance to announce its plan for the sale of TikTok in the U.S. by September 20 and complete a deal by November 12. The U.S. government will ban the Chinese video app by September 29 on national security grounds if it fails to submit its plan. TikTok unsuccessfully sued against the ban order in late August.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

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Top Rated Comments

laptech Avatar
60 months ago
Very hypocritical of China to say that it will not allow IP and software code to be in the hands of a US company but it has no problems stealing IP or software code from US companies.
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CarpalMac Avatar
60 months ago

Millions of teenage TikTok users are now wondering what the Hell is an Oracle?


Probably showing my old age there now too...
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dwalls90 Avatar
60 months ago

Good. They should wait until the last minute of the deadline, fire all American employees and close shop. Do not give into bullies, especially if the bully is the the American government who apparently thinks it can dictate the world.
Unfortunately I have to agree. That's at least 1,400 more Americans unemployed, and Tik Tok was planning to employ up to 10,000 more Americans in the coming years. Not exactly great policy given the recession and unemployment numbers.

I'm not saying Tik Tok is totally innocent. Their apps seem to have a similar level of "spyware" that Facebook has. But if the US was truly worried about these concerns, then they would have taken serious action against Facebook after data harvesting and allowing 2016 election interference. Not sure why Americans feel fine if a US company or government has their information, but are up in arms if a foreign power does. In case anyone didn't already know this, the second any data is collected on you, you're extremely naive to think it can't ever be hacked or otherwise shared. This is why it's best that data isn't collected in the first place, regardless of the app or country it's run out of. If we're being honest, this isn't really about the nature of what Tik Tok's app or the CCP may be up to, its just more tit-for-tat foreign policy. Blame China for the virus. Blame China for Tik Tok. Blame China for taking jobs that are realistically never coming back to the United States. And you can't forget the fact Tik Tok embarrassed Trump after the Tulsa rally.

The US thinks it can go Cold War against China or countries that don't do as they dictate, and that's not a viable long term strategy. Starting to sound an awfully lot like Russia.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Eraserhead Avatar
60 months ago

China the ones that brought you covid19 and now this
Covid being a ******** in the US is 100% on Trump. Western intelligence knew about it in November 2019.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ph001bi Avatar
60 months ago

('https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/14/oracle-deal-buy-tiktok-us-beats-microsoft/')

Amid reports Monday morning that Oracle has won the battle with Microsoft to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations, China's state-run English TV channel is claiming that no sale with any U.S. buyer will go ahead (via Reuters ('https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-china-bytedance-tiktok-cgtn/bytedance-wont-sell-tiktok-us-operations-to-oracle-or-microsoft-cgtn-idUKKBN2650MC')).


A source also told the South China Morning Post ('https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3101362/tiktoks-algorithm-not-sale-bytedance-tells-us-source') that the tech upstart has decided not to sell or transfer the source code behind its popular video app.

The development follows a report from The Wall Street Journal ('https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-drops-out-of-bidding-for-tiktoks-u-s-operations-11600039821') on Sunday evening that claimed database software and cloud systems giant Oracle had closed the deal moments after Microsoft announced it had been rejected. The deal reportedly stopped short of an outright acquisition of all assets and intellectual property, with TikTok considering Oracle as a "trusted tech partner" instead.

In a blog post ('https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/09/13/microsoft-statement-on-tiktok/') following the news, Microsoft wrote:
Microsoft was originally regarded as the frontrunner ('https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/03/microsoft-confirms-plan-to-acquire-tiktok/') in acquisition talks with TikTok's China-based parent company, ByteDance, and provided a formal proposal that would have involved the purchase of TikTok's operations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Bloomberg on Monday cited sources ('https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-13/oracle-is-said-to-gain-advantage-in-deal-for-tiktok-in-u-s') claiming that terms being discussed between ByteDance and Oracle were "still evolving," but that one of the options being explored could see Oracle take a stake in a newly formed U.S. business while serving as TikTok's U.S. technology partner and housing the video app's data in Oracle's cloud servers.

Offers from both parties reportedly valued the U.S. business at about $25 billion, but that was said to be before Chinese officials weighed in with new rules imposing limits on technology exports.

Any deal would still need to be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a U.S. government group chaired by the Treasury Secretary that studies corporate mergers for national security reasons.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in mid-August demanding that ByteDance sell its U.S. operations within 90 days ('https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/15/tiktok-90-days/'). Trump required ByteDance to announce its plan for the sale of TikTok in the U.S. by September 20 and complete a deal by November 12. The U.S. government will ban the Chinese video app by September 29 on national security grounds if it fails to submit its plan. TikTok unsuccessfully sued against the ban order in late August.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News ('https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/political-news.218/') forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Oracle Reportedly Agrees Deal for TikTok's US Operations, But Chinese Media Cast Doubt on Any Sale ('https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/14/oracle-deal-buy-tiktok-us-beats-microsoft/')
Millions of teenage TikTok users are now wondering what the Hell is an Oracle?
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
deevey Avatar
60 months ago

Millions of teenage TikTok users are now wondering what the Hell is an Oracle?
Millions of teenage users in China are wondering what the hell Tok Tok is ;)
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)