Matti Robinson
14 Sep 2020 11:57
The controversial social media TikTok has been acquired by a company that not many even considered in the race. Oracle, the company behind MySQL, Java and other computer technologies, has bought TikTok's American operations, Bloomberg reports.
Microsoft was in talks with TikTok for a while, and the Chinese-owned social media even tried to sweet talk U.S. government into not having to sell its operations.
However, Trump administration didn't back down from forcing change in ownership for the U.S. operations to keep up the app available. The administration cited security concerns with Chinese government possibly intervening in TikTok's businesses and data.
And now we're at Oracle owning the teen-focused app with short videos of dancing and cute animals, what else.
Oracle is one of the largest technology companies on the planet but they are largely developing enterprise solutions, AI, cloud computing, and data technologies, not so much consumer products or apps.
At this point there aren't a lot of details about the acquisition but it seems like the TikTok U.S. operations are separated to a new entity that will be owned by Oracle and the original sole owner ByteDance.
There's no word on how much this cost Oracle but we're talking billions, tens of billions even. Early offers from both Microsoft and Oracle are said to be in the $25 billion range.
Now, we'll have to wait and see whether the government is willing to bless this marriage and let TikTok entertain the public hungry for awkward dances in the future.