Exclusive | ByteDance walks away from TikTok deal with Oracle after Donald Trump’s White House exit
- The app’s Chinese owner had agreed in principle to sell a stake in its US operations after the former president threatened to ban it
- A source says Trump’s departure has destroyed its ‘raison d’être’
TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance shelved a deal to sell the video-sharing app’s US operations to a group led by Oracle following Donald Trump’s exit from the White House, according to a source who has been briefed on the situation.
“The deal was mainly designed to entertain demands from the Trump administration,” said the source, who declined to be named. “But Trump is gone, and the raison d’être of the deal is gone with him.”
The source added that Larry Ellison, one of Oracle’s founders, was a Trump supporter and ByteDance believed this would have been a valuable relationship if the former president had won re-election, but the social media giant lost interest after Biden won the election.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the plan had been shelved “indefinitely” while President Joe Biden undertakes a broad review of his predecessor’s efforts to address potential security risks from Chinese tech companies.