Oracle is said to be in talks to buy TikTok’s US operations

Oracle expressed interest in acquiring TikTok, according to the Financial Times, by offering Microsoft a possible rival in its bid to manage the Chinese social video platform in the US.

Larry Ellison ‘s enterprise tech giant has recently held informal negotiations with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, partnered with venture capital companies including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, and is “seriously exploring” the purchase of the business in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

President Trump signed an executive order on Friday to order ByteDance to sell its US company within 90 days. The FT states that Oracle’s billionaire co-founder, Ellison, is one of the few U.S. tech leaders who publicly endorsed Trump, but it’s not obvious if Oracle will be TikTok ‘s favorite White House suitor.

A deal to buy part of TikTok would be legally complex and technically complex. Until now, Microsoft has been considered a pioneer in the market for an American buyer. The FT corroborates earlier reports from The Wall Street Journal that said Twitter also expressed early interest, but it is said that there were “serious concerns” about its financial capacity for the deal. Although ByteDance has not publicly said out the price, TikTok ‘s popularity has led it to become the most successful company in the world in 2018.