Washington (AFP)
Donald Trump supports a possible purchase offer by Oracle of TikTok, a Chinese video-sharing application, already in negotiations with Microsoft.
According to the Bloomberg agency, the IT group Oracle, whose president Larry Ellison has raised millions of dollars for Donald Trump's campaign, is now in line to buy the activities of TikTok in the United States, Canada, in Australia and New Zealand.
The American group, contacted on Tuesday by AFP, declined to comment on this information.
Responding to questions after a speech Tuesday in Arizona, Mr Trump said, “I think Oracle is a great company, and I think its owner is a great guy. He's a great person. that Oracle would certainly be able to handle that. "
Asked about his preference for the takeover of TikTok, the president only said that the prospective buyer will have to "ensure that the United States receives good compensation."
The Trump administration has given Chinese owner of TikTok, ByteDance, 90 days to quickly sell off the network's US operations, failing to block it in the US, citing national security concerns.
The tenant of the White House had already taken radical measures ten days ago against Tiktok, very frequented by the youngest, prohibiting him, within 45 days, from any transaction with an American partner.
The American president has accused for months, without proof, the Chinese platform of siphoning the data of American users for the benefit of Beijing.
TikTok stepped up its communications campaign on Monday with a new website and Twitter account dedicated to combating "rumors" about it.
"TikTok is not available in China. US user data is stored in Virginia with a backup in Singapore," the company said. "TikTok has never provided any US data to the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked," it read.
© 2020 AFP