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Oracle confirms it has reached a deal to become TikTok’s ‘technology partner’

  • Proposal comes just ahead of US President Trump’s threat to ban the video-sharing app on national security grounds
  • Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the plan will undergo review, with a recommendation issued by the end of the week

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The US government has received a proposal from Oracle Corp to be the “technology partner” of the video-sharing app TikTok after TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, rejected a proposal from Microsoft, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. Photo: AFP

Oracle Corp confirmed on Monday it had reached a deal to become the “technology partner” of TikTok, the popular video-sharing app, ahead of a deadline imposed by US President Donald Trump for the Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US assets.

“Oracle confirms Secretary Mnuchin’s statement that it is part of the proposal submitted by ByteDance to the Treasury Department over the weekend in which Oracle will serve as the trusted technology provider,” Oracle said, referring to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

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Oracle reaches deal to become TikTok’s ‘technology partner’, after Microsoft offer is rejected

Oracle reaches deal to become TikTok’s ‘technology partner’, after Microsoft offer is rejected

In an interview on Monday morning on CNBC, Mnuchin said the US government had received a proposal over the weekend that included Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, as a partner to alleviate the Trump administration’s national security concerns over data privacy.

Mnuchin did not say the US would approve the proposal, only that it would undergo a review both by the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and another specifically investigating national security concerns. A recommendation, Mnuchin added, would be made by the end of the week.

Mnuchin, who clarified that the deadline for a sale was September 20, said “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”.

“We’ll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons, or it will be sold,” US President Donald Trump said last week. Photo: EPA-EFE
“We’ll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons, or it will be sold,” US President Donald Trump said last week. Photo: EPA-EFE
Jodi Xu Klein is Deputy Bureau Chief, North America at the Post. Klein is an award-winning business journalist with 20 years of experience. She joined the Post in 2017 following a decade covering finance and business for The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg in New York. She was part of the Time Magazine reporting team that won the Henry R. Luce Award for the China Sars coverage.
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