Oracle Poised to Take Over TikTok Amid US Pressure

Software powerhouse Oracle, helmed by billionaire Larry Ellison, has emerged as a leading contender to oversee TikTok‘s US operations. The Trump administration is racing toward an April 5 deadline to finalize a sale, following an executive order in January that extended Congress’s mandated ban by 75 days. Previously, Microsoft was also rumored to be interested in acquiring the platform.

TikTok briefly faced an outage in January when its China-based parent company, ByteDance, missed an earlier deadline to divest. Reports suggest ByteDance prefers to collaborate with Oracle—its current cloud service provider—rather than fully relinquish control. Sources, including investors and former executives, indicate ByteDance’s interest in retaining partial ownership despite legal pressure for complete separation.

Neither Oracle nor the White House has commented on the matter. ByteDance is reportedly lobbying for Trump’s approval to revive “Project Texas,” an earlier plan to store US user data on Oracle’s servers while granting Oracle access to audit its source code. However, lawmakers previously dismissed this as insufficient.

President Trump recently stated that four different groups are bidding for TikTok, without naming them. A consortium led by Frank McCourt, Kevin O’Leary, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian proposes rebuilding TikTok’s algorithm using blockchain. Meanwhile, entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley, with YouTube star MrBeast, is also bidding.

Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton insists on full ByteDance divestment, making any continued Chinese ownership unlikely.

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