US Government Confirms Receiving Oracle Bid For TikTok

The Oracle bid will be handled by a govt panel that reviews foreign transactions for national security concerns.

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(Photo Courtesy: TikTok)

The US government has received a bid from Oracle for TikTok’s US operations after ByteDance rejected Microsoft’s proposal on Monday, 14 September.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the Oracle bid will be handled by a government panel that reviews foreign transactions for national security concerns.

TikTok said in a statement that “we’ve submitted a proposal to the Treasury Department which we believe would resolve the Administration’s security concerns” and allow the company to continue to be used by 100 million people in the US.

The statement further mentioned, that “the proposal would enable us to continue supporting our community of 100 million people in the U.S. who love TikTok for connection and entertainment, as well as the hundreds of thousands of small business owners and creators who rely upon TikTok to grow their livelihoods and build meaningful careers,” reported CNBC.

The US Treasury Secretary told CNBC that that government needs to be sure that the “code is, one, secure, Americans' data are secure, phones are secure, and we'll be having discussions with Oracle over the next few days with our technical teams.”

Meanwhile, Oracle confirmed that the company “is part of the proposal by ByteDance to the Treasury Department over the weekend in which Oracle will serve as the trusted technology provider,” the report added.

US President Donald Trump had ordered the sale of TikTok’s US operations by 20 September, after which the app would shut down.

Donald Trump had on 14 August asked TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to divest the US operation of the app within 90 days, citing national security reasons. Trump had claimed that TikTok is a national security threat and has close ties to the Chinese government.

TikTok sued the United States government on 24 August, accusing it of depriving the platform of due process when President Trump issued an executive order to block it from operating in the country.

(With inputs from NDTV, CNBC)