According to Forbes, Oracle Corp, has won the bid to acquire the entirety of TikTok’s operations in the United States, from its parent company ByteDance which is based in Beijing China.
This is coming just weeks after United States President; Donald Trump made it known weeks ago that the TikTok application would be banned in the United States, unless its operations within the country were sold to an American company.
Oracle reportedly won the bidding ‘war’ for TikTok’s operations in the United States after outbidding fellow technology giant; Microsoft.
Microsoft’s bid was a joint offer with retail behemoth; Walmart who officially announced its interest on Thursday the 10th of September 2020, revealing that it intended to use TikTok to grow its advertising and e-commerce ventures.
With this new development, it is anticipated that Oracle will very soon be announced as the trusted tech partner for TikTok in the United States.
The deal with TikTok which has found itself smack in the middle of a geopolitical back and forth, is expected to not likely be structured as an out-and-out sale.
Although details of the deal including the actual monetary figures are not yet out Microsoft on Sunday, revealed that it had stepped out of the race for the acquisition of TikTok after its offer was turned down by ByteDance.
Oracle’s bid for TikTok’s United States operations was reportedly backed by Sequoia Capital and General Atlantic. Both venture capitalist companies, are also major investors in ByteDance; TikTok’s parent company.
The Chief Executive Officer of General Atlantic Bill Ford and Doug Leone who is a Sequoia partner were according to Forbes
One of Sequoia’s partners, Doug Leone—a major Trump donor—and Bill Ford, CEO of General Atlantic, had reportedly been working with the White House to help secure the deal for Oracle’s consortium.
In August 2020 the President of the United States Donald Trump, supported the TikTok bid by Oracle and stated that Oracle is “a great company”.
August 2020 also saw the resignation of TikTok’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO); Kevin Mayer who made the announcement mere months after taking over the reins. Reports revealed that he had not foreseen the tensions between the United States and China bringing TikTok into the mix when he was appointed in June 2020.
Because the political tension effectively changed the scope of the CEO’s duties, TikTok respected his decision to step down. This is according to CNN Business.
TikTok has also filed a legal challenge again the executive order issued by United States President; Donald Trump, which banned all United States transactions with the social media platform, as well as with its parent company; ByteDance.
Whether or not the alleged acquisition by Oracle will have any effect on the current lawsuit is not yet known.
TikTok is also facing some court action of its own as a class-action suit was filed in Illinois by parents of a size able number of children. The parents allege that TikTok collects location data, facial recognition data, as well as data regarding close contacts of their children and sends said data to various servers in China discreetly.
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