Trump’s Effort to Have TikTok Sold to Oracle led to a Watered-Down Partnership Instead 

Anyone interested in the Biden administration’s support of the US TikTok spinoff would probably do well to learn some lessons from Trump’s botched attempt to do basically the same thing. Back in 2020, with his presidency nearing its final days, Trump issued a shocking executive order giving ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, 90 days to find an American buyer for the US portion of the app. Trump justified the forced sale by saying officials had found “credible evidence,” the apps could take actions to harm US national security. Of course, the administration never actually revealed what those credible threats are. Neither has his successor.

Still, multiple major US tech companies including Oracle and Microsoft seized on the opportunity to potentially own the fast-growing social networking site in the US. Oracle, which was Trump’s biggest Silicon Valley supporter, ultimately won the deal but it became clear pretty quickly that it would not at all resemble the acquisition Trump had once described. Instead, Oracle referred to themselves as TikTok’s “technology partner.”

Rather than become its parent company, Oracle has instead played a key role in TikTok’s US data routing plan, dubbed “Project Texas.” As part of that proposal, TikTok committed to siloing its American operation into a subsidiary called ​​TikTok US Data Security, whose leadership would require American government approval. Lawmakers questioning CEO Chew during a hearing in March didn’t seem to think that proposal would satisfy their security concerns.