The TikTok saga in the United States ends, provisionally, as it began: on a very political note and in economic and legal vagueness.
ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of the video-sharing social network, has rejected the offer to purchase submitted by Microsoft to join forces with Oracle, the US enterprise software giant, which submitted an offer to it, confirmed the White House, Monday, September 14.
But beware, this outcome does not mean that TikTok's US operations will come under the Oracle banner.
The American group will only become a "trusted technology partner" of the Chinese social network in the United States.
Far from Donald Trump's demands
A reconciliation with much more vague contours than the takeover offer put on the table by Microsoft.
"ByteDance should keep control of the application, but would let Oracle manage the data collected in the 'cloud' [on online servers, Editor's note]", believes the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources close to the negotiations between the two groups.
Such a solution would be light years away from Donald Trump's demands.
The White House tenant had threatened to ban TikTok in the United States unless ByteDance ceded its American activities to an American buyer before September 20.
The Trump administration was thus seeking to cut the cord between the American office of the social network and Beijing, because Washington suspected ByteDance of letting the Chinese authorities consult the data collected on the 100 million American users of TikTok.
But the agreement emerging between Oracle and the Chinese group "does not resolve any of the national security issues raised by Washington," said Alex Stamos, former Facebook security manager, on Twitter.
ByteDance would keep control over its algorithm, which chooses what content is promoted to users, and this partnership "does not imply any change in the way TikTok operates in the United States", summarizes Alex Stamos.
It is difficult to imagine that the White House, under these conditions, gives its approval to such a marriage at a minimum.
Especially since Donald Trump had already notified Microsoft last July that he would not accept anything other than a buyout.
And especially not a "technological partnership", as Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft had then proposed, recalls the technological information site The Protocol.
Oracle's "Tump-o-Philie"
Oracle has, nevertheless, an asset that Microsoft did not have.
It is one of the few leading tech groups to politically support Donald Trump.
And from the start.
Safra Catz, the group's CEO, was part of the Republican candidate's transition team following his 2016 presidential victory. "I told the president that we will be with him and do everything to help him achieve this. its objectives, ”she declared on December 11, 2016. The businesswoman had even been approached for a time to become Donald Trump's national security adviser.
The leaders of the group have since multiplied the gestures of goodwill towards the White House.
In March, when the president pushed for hydroxychloroquine, the controversial anti-malaria treatment, to be adopted to fight Covid-19, Oracle jumped at the opportunity to provide technological support for a large study to test the effectiveness of this medicine.
Oracle has also recruited several lobbyists close to members of the presidential entourage, such as Matt Schlapp, husband of Mercedes Schlapp, strategic advisor in the campaign team for the re-election of Donald Trump.
Safra Catz and Jeffrey O. Henley, vice director of Oracle, also gave respectively $ 130,000 and $ 55,000 to finance the outgoing president's campaign against Democrat Joe Biden.
Finally, Larry Ellison, the charismatic founder of Oracle, had organized, last January, a fundraiser for Donald Trump, publicly declaring, on this occasion, his political flame for the Republican politician.
This assumed "Trump-o-philia" allowed Oracle to be one of the only giants in Silicon Valley to never have drawn the wrath of the White House, recalls the Financial Times.
The group also has the rare privilege of having two seats on the board for "the reopening of the economy" after the Covid-19 pandemic.
But a green light for the rapprochement between TikTok and Oracle would illustrate "how much clientelism has grown in importance in American economic policy under Trump", Judge Jasmin Mujanović, political scientist and specialist in the issues of crises in democratic regimes, on Twitter.
A "technological partnership" between the Chinese social network and the American star of business software does, in fact, "make no economic sense", judge Brent Thill, an analyst at the investment bank Jefferies, interviewed by the Financial Times.
The American group has built its fortune in the austere world of business and has no experience helping manage a social network for young people fueled by viral videos, continues this expert.
If Donald Trump accepts the terms of a partnership he refused to Microsoft it would mean, for ex-Facebook security chief Alex Stamos, that all talk about the dangers of TikTok "was just one vast scam "to allow Oracle to ultimately win the jackpot.
It doesn't matter if this deal makes economic sense or if it neutralizes the risk posed by TikTok to US national security.
The summary of the week
France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 application
google-play-badge_FR