"A great guy," thinks Donald Trump: Oracle co-founder and boss Larry Ellison
Photo: STEPHEN LAM / REUTERSAccording to insiders, Oracle has entered the bidding race for the US business of the Chinese short video service TikTok. The SAP competitor has joined the buying opportunities of some investors in TikTok owner ByteDance, including General Atlantic and Sequoia, said several people familiar with the matter to the Reuters news agency.
You are interested in the North American activities as well as the business in Australia and New Zealand and are currently preparing an offer. In doing so, they would compete with the world's largest software company, Microsoft, which has so far been considered the most promising candidate for the contract. The short message service Twitter, which is said to have also signaled interest, is, however, hardly given any opportunities.
US President Donald Trump has asked ByteDance to sell TikTok's US business within 45 days. The US government worries about an alleged abuse of user data and wants to ban TikTok and the WeChat offer from the Chinese technology giant Tencent.
"A great company"
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is one of the few high-level executives at a technology company who openly supports Trump.
"I think Oracle is a great company," Trump said during a press conference in Yuma, Arizona. Looking at the group, which specializes in database solutions for companies, he was confident "that Oracle would certainly be someone who could handle it." Larry Ellison called the US President a "great guy".
The group could take over TikTok in the USA. Such an acquisition would represent a strategic realignment for Oracle. So far, the US group has generated the majority of its income with software licenses and cloud applications, which are aimed primarily at corporations and less at individual customers.
What does Oracle want from Tiktok?
Since Oracle has not yet commented on the rumors, speculations are now making the rounds as to why the company might be interested in taking over the service, which is mainly used by young people. For example, "The Register" suspects that the company wants to take over the data of TikTok users in its marketing products in order to make them more attractive for advertisers.
Donald Trump had given TikTok the choice of selling the US business to an American company or being banned in the US on the grounds that the company's data collection was a threat to national security. A few days ago he ordered the TikTok operator Bytedance to destroy the data of all users in the United States within three months. Bytedance is also no longer allowed to own property in the USA that is used to operate TikTok.
ByteDance, TikTok, Oracle, General Atlantic and Sequoia were initially not available for comment. The "Financial Times" was the first to report on Oracle's interest.
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