Washington, Sep 14 (UNI) Microsoft announced on Monday that the popular video-sharing app TikTok has rejected the offer to buy its US operations in the last minute, thus paving the way for Oracle to make a bid.
US President Donald Trump has given the September 15 deadline for the Chinese-owned app to sell its US operations or shut it down, claiming that TikTok and other Chinese apps are a threat to US' national security.
Microsoft and Oracle have been in the race to buy TikTok from the Chinese firm ByteDance.
According to the BBC, Oracle, which sells database technology and cloud systems to businesses, had won the bidding war.
Earlier, reports were doing the rounds that Oracle was seriously considering buying TikTok's businesses in North America(US and Canada) and in the Asia Oceanic (Australia and New Zealand) with the support of investment firms, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital.
However, TikTok spokesperson told the BBC the firm was "not commenting on either the Microsoft development nor the Oracle speculation".
On Sunday, Microsoft announced "ByteDance informed us that they will not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident of our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while also protecting national security interests.”
This paves the way for Oracle, who Mr Trump said would be "a great company" to take over TikTok's US operations last month.
Mr Trump ordered TikTok's owner ByteDance to sell its US business within 90 days or face being shut down. The forced sale of TikTok's US business is part of a wider crackdown on Chinese technology firms in America by the Trump administration and is part of the ongoing trade war between the world's two biggest economies.
UNI XC ACL GK 1031