Details of the U.S.-based TikTok agreement between the
United States and China began to trickle out today after U.S. President Trump on Friday in a post on Truth Social said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping made progress on the agreement, which involves a
group of previously announced investors taking control of TikTok's U.S. operations.
Under the proposed U.S. TikTok deal, Oracle will recreate and provide security for a new U.S. version of
TikTok's algorithm, several media outlets reported, citing a White House official.
The owners of the U.S.-based TikTok will lease a copy of the algorithm from ByteDance, and Oracle will
retrain the algorithm “from the ground up.”
U.S. buyers will retain control of the app’s recommendation software after ByteDance spins off TikTok U.S. operations.
“Oracle will operate in partnership with the U.S. government to ensure safety and data security across the entire TikTok platform — from source code review, to algorithm retraining, to
application development and deployment,” the Financial Times reported, citing a White House official.
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This is a shift from an earlier deal that Oracle held with ByteDance, which
the companies say will not have access to U.S. user information.
Oracle’s servers will store the data from TikTok’s roughly 170 million U.S. users.
Oracle’s
non-competing business model could have edged out Google, Microsoft and other businesses, because it does not have a TikTok-like or advertising business.
The company's primary business is
enterprise software and cloud services, not consumer social media or media of any type. It also has an extensive cloud infrastructure and security services that can support video.
Since
2023, Oracle has participated in Project Texas, a $1.5 billion initiative by TikTok to secure U.S. user data based on national security. The project involved moving U.S. user data
to Oracle's U.S. cloud servers, creating a separate U.S. subsidiary and establishing layers of U.S. government and independent oversight to
prevent unauthorized access and foreign influence.
The news comes as Oracle announced Monday that it has appointed two new co-CEOs to replace its current chief executive officer
Safra Catz, who will move to the role of executive vice chair of the board.
Clay Magouyrk, who was the president of the company's AI cloud business, Oracle Cloud
Infrastructure (OCI), and Mike Sicilia, who was the president of Oracle Industries, will become the two new chief executive officers.
Oracle shuttered its ad business in September 2024 after
investing billions into acquisitions like Datalogix, Moat, and Grapeshot to expand ad services, but decided to exit that business due to a lack of alignment with its core strategy.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that media executive Lachlan Murdoch and his
father, Rupert Murdoch, could join the team of U.S. TikTok investors and invest in the company through his media group Fox Corp.
“A man named Lachlan is involved,”
Trump said on Fox News' “The Sunday Briefing.” He then reportedly cited Lachlan Murdoch.
Rupert Murdoch privately told executives working on the deal for the video-sharing app that
he wanted to own a small stake in the company if an agreement could be reached, the WSJ, reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
Personal computer pioneer
Michael Dell also is expected to invest in this new venture.