Donald Trump administration is working on a plan to save TikTok by tapping Oracle and a group of oustside investors which includes Microsoft, to take control of the short video app, a report from NPR stated citing sources. TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance is said to retain a minority stake in the company but the reported agreeement could see the app’s alogithm, data collection and software updates to be seen by Oracle.
A meeting is said to have been held between the White House officials and executives from Oracle on Friday involving the potential deal and another meeting is scheduled to be held next week. Under the agreement, TikTok’s American investors could own a majority stake in the app. However, the report adds that terms of the agreement are still being hammered out and are subject to change at this point.
“The goal is for Oracle to effectively monitor and provide oversight with what is going on with TikTok,…ByteDance wouldn’t completely go away, but it would minimize Chinese ownership.” a source quoted by NPR said.
What price will TikTok sell?
Reportedly, White House negotiators state that ByteDance feels it could get at least $200 billion for TikTok, which could prompt the app out of the reach of any of the consortium of investors who have been promoting their bids.
Notably, TikTok briefly went offline for around 14 hours in the US in compliance with a US law which stated that its Chinese parent ByteDance must make a ‘qualified divestiture’ in the company for the app to stay operational in the US. After Trump took oath on 20 January, he gave TikTok another 75 days to comply with the federal law.
“My initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose,” Trump had wrote on his social media website Truth Social ahead of signing the executive order.
