Oracle Throws Its Hat In The Ring To Acquire TikTok: The Perfect Buyer?

The ByteDance owned popular short-form video app TikTok has a lot on its plate right now. Besides having Microsoft bid for the acquisition of their global operations, the Chinese-origin company is also heading to take on the Trump administration in court. 

Nonetheless, while the debates like Microsoft’s interest in TikTok is a trillion-dollar move is already buzzing the internet, TikTok might just have found a perfect buyer if ByteDance has to sell it, eventually.

Oracle, the American multinational technology giant, is the latest entrant in the bidding war against Microsoft for acquiring TikTok. According to sources who are closely linked to the discussions, the company has held preliminary talks with ByteDance and has shown serious intent towards acquiring their business in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Additionally, the sources have also revealed that the Larry Ellison headed enterprise giant is working with venture capital firms, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, to fructify the deal faster.

Up until now, Microsoft was considered the only heavyweight when it came to be the frontrunner for giving TikTok an American home; however, it seems like that is now going to change. 

Earlier, Twitter too had expressed an interest in TikTok. The micro-social networking platform, however, has abandoned the idea because of ‘serious concerns’ about its financial capacity for the deal.

While it’s true that ByteDance is yet to price tag TikTok, speculation suggests that the deal size could be to the tune of $50 billion.

That being said, let’s get to the more important question here – Why Oracle might just be the perfect American buyer for TikTok?

Oracle: The Perfect Buyer For TikTok?

Though a deal to buy part of TikTok can be legally fraught and very complex in term of technical challenges, Oracle might just be the perfect buyer for the short-form video app and end the insurmountable problems ByteDance is facing in the US, India and few other countries.

The billionaire Co-Founder of the enterprise giant Larry Ellison is a staunch supporter of President Trump and has been openly vocal about his opinions. Thus, one can easily connect the dots on how ByteDance stands to benefit from this deal. 

If this particular deal fructifies then it could be very much possible that ByteDance can escape all the legal pushback it is currently facing. 

Apart from that, one must also take into account that Oracle does not have a consumer-facing social media platform or video business, yet. Therefore, in theory, they could definitely make good use of all the customer data collected by TikTok to improve their marketing products. 

However, it also needs to be noted here that spending billions of dollars to acquire a consumer-facing social media company means Oracle will be undertaking a significant amount of risk. Not to mention the effort and costs that are involved in the upkeep, moderation and up-gradation are huge as well.

After Amazon Web Services entered and dominated the cloud computing space followed by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, it left little to no room for Oracle to thrive. Thus, they have since struggled to find new avenues of growth. 

Experts believe that if Oracle succeeds in acquiring TikTok, and manages the growth, it could easily bounce back with the addition of hundreds of billions of dollars in valuation on the list of top stocks.

Now, it remains to be seen if the deal goes through and they can pivot into the consumer social media space which is something that has a huge potential especially with TikTok being a tried a tested product. We will keep you updated on all future developments. Until then, stay tuned.