Donald Trump gives "blessing" to deal to keep TikTok operating in US
TikTok will seemingly continue to operate in the US after President Donald Trump gave his “blessing” to a proposed deal that will see the video-sharing app partnering with Oracle.
The app, along with WeChat, had previously faced a download ban after the US government said they were both “active participants in China’s civil-military fusion” and alleged that they collect “vast swaths of data from users, including network activity, location data, and browsing and search histories.”
But it will now continue to operate after the deal with tech giant Oracle saw TikTok complying to orders for it to join forces with an American company.
“I have given the deal my blessing,” Trump said on Saturday (September 19). “If they get it done, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s OK too.”
Trump added that the new company will be hiring at least 25,000 people and making a $5 billion contribution to an American education fund.
The new deal will see Oracle hosting all TikTok’s US’s user data and providing computer systems to ensure that national security requirements are met.
Walmart, a partner in the deal, will provide a mixture of ecommerce and payment services to the new company.
“We are pleased that the proposal by TikTok, Oracle, and Walmart will resolve the security concerns of the US administration and settle questions around TikTok’s future in the US,” TikTok said in a statement.