Now according to a report from The Wall Street Journal (paywall), it looks like Oracle might have won the bid, but not in the way you think. The publication has revealed that Oracle has apparently been chosen to be TikTok’s “trusted tech partner”. What this means is that while Oracle will not be acquiring TikTok outright, they will be managing the company’s US operations.
This means that instead of relying on ByteDance, which is a Chinese company, TikTok’s operations will now go through Oracle’s own cloud technology based in the US. This is interesting because not too long ago, it was reported that TikTok was in talks that could maybe allow them to avoid selling themselves outright.
This was expected to come in the form of a restructuring that would allay any concerns regarding national security, and it looks like this could be it. In the meantime, Microsoft had also recently confirmed that they would no longer be pursuing the acquisition of TikTok.