Oracle to edge out Microsoft in purchasing TikTok

Microsoft confirmed earlier this month about its intentions to buy out the US operations of ByteDance, the owner of the infamous app TikTok. However, a report from The Financial Times emerged, suggesting Oracle is also joining the race.

Earlier today the software company received verbal approval from the US President Donald Trump during a speech in Yuma, Arizona.

The tech company has already had preliminary talks with ByteDance and is seriously considering purchasing the app’s operations in the United States, as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

According to FT, Oracle has an edge over its main competitor Microsoft - partners that are already stakeholders at the Chinese company. “Oracle was working with a group of investors, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital”, the article reads further.

Chairman and co-founder of Oracle is Larry Ellison who is a supporter of the Trump Administration and even held a fundraising event for him earlier this year. When the president was asked whether the California company would be a good buyer, he said:

I think its owner is a tremendous guy, a tremendous person. I think that Oracle would be certainly somebody that could handle it.

Donald Trump has threatened ByteDance to sell its business into American arms until September 15 or face an executive order to close its operations. Tencent is facing a similar risk with its WeChat platform, although it hasn’t received an exact deadline.

Source | Via