Oracle Corp. will rebuild and secure a U.S.-based version of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm as part of a deal to sell the popular video-sharing app to American investors, a White House official said Monday, according to Bloomberg. The move is intended to address one of Washington’s biggest national security concerns over the Chinese-owned platform.
Under the plan, ByteDance Ltd., TikTok’s Beijing-based parent, would lease a copy of its recommendation software to the U.S. venture. Oracle would then retrain the algorithm “from the ground up” and continuously monitor it to prevent manipulation or surveillance. The American-owned TikTok would store all U.S. user data in Oracle-managed cloud servers with safeguards to block access by foreign adversaries, including China.
“Oracle, the U.S. security partner, will operate, retrain, and continuously monitor the U.S. algorithm to ensure content is free from improper manipulation or surveillance,” the White House said in a Q&A accompanying its announcement.
The arrangement comes as President Donald Trump prepares to sign an executive order approving the transaction this week, fulfilling a campaign promise to force a divestiture of TikTok’s U.S. business. Trump said Friday that he had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping and approved the plan, though China’s foreign ministry stopped short of giving full endorsement, noting only that it hoped “productive commercial negotiations” would lead to a lawful outcome.
To allow more time for the deal, Trump will extend the deadline for ByteDance to divest by 120 days, on top of the 90-day extension he signed last week that runs through mid-December.
The proposal also satisfies legal requirements that ByteDance relinquish control of TikTok’s U.S. operations. The restructured company would be majority owned by American investors, with ByteDance’s stake reduced to below 20%. Six of the seven board seats would be held by U.S. directors, with ByteDance occupying the remaining seat but excluded from the new security committee overseeing the app.
Oracle, which already provides cloud services for TikTok under the multibillion-dollar “Project Texas” partnership, is part of the investor consortium along with Andreessen Horowitz and Silver Lake Management, Bloomberg previously reported. Retraining and securing the algorithm would significantly expand Oracle’s role in TikTok’s U.S. operations and deepen its position as a key infrastructure provider.
Still, questions remain about whether lawmakers who demanded a “clean break” between TikTok and ByteDance will accept the algorithm leasing plan, and whether the technical disentanglement is even feasible given Chinese restrictions on technology exports.
