The Chinese TikTok application in front of the American flag.
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Dongxu Fang / Costfoto / Sipa USA /
It's settling for TikTok in the United States, but the show is far from over.
The US government will study a "proposal" this week from its Chinese owner ByteDance, which has chosen what appears to be a partnership - and not a sale of its North American business or its algorithm - with the database giant. Oracle.
It remains to be seen whether this arrangement, which is far from Donald Trump's initial demands, will receive the green light from the authorities of the two countries.
"We received a proposal over the weekend that includes Oracle as a trusted technology partner, with many national security recommendations," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Monday on CNBC.
Donald Trump's minister did not specify in what form the partnership could take place between the Chinese group and the Californian Oracle, specializing in software and services for businesses.
A partnership rather than a sale
An agreement nevertheless seems to be emerging, since Oracle confirmed for its part in a press release that its proposal was part of that "submitted by ByteDance to the Treasury Department over the weekend".
A source familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that the agreement will "probably not be structured as an outright sale" while some media, citing Chinese sources, spoke on Monday of a "privileged technological partnership" and not a sale of TikTok's US operations.
CNBC also raised the possibility of Oracle taking a minority stake in TikTok.
Donald Trump had demanded by decree a sale of operations, it remains to be seen whether a partnership could satisfy the host of the White House.
Time is running out since the deadline has been set for September 20, Sunday, said Steven Mnuchin.
The US president, who accuses TikTok of spying on behalf of the Chinese government, had mentioned Tuesday as a deadline.
TikTok challenges the US measure and has filed a complaint against the US government.
National security
Oracle's proposal will be examined "this week at the Cfius committee," which reviews foreign investment in the United States, said Steven Mnuchin.
“Then we will make a recommendation to the president and review it with him,” he added.
Steven Mnuchin refused to "go into the details of the negotiation", insisting that the sine qua non was the preservation of national security.
The Trump administration will ensure "that the technology on American phones is secure," he continued, citing "great confidence in Microsoft and Oracle".
For Carl Tobias, professor of law at the University of Richmond, “It's hard to know what Oracle means when it says it wants to serve as TikTok's trusted technology provider.
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"This notion is crucial because one of the main reasons for Trump's decrees was concerns about the threat TikTok poses to national security," adds Tobias, who questions whether the deal will be enough to prevent the ban of the platform in the United States.
Beijing wants to ban the sale of the algorithm
Microsoft had expressed its interest in the takeover of TikTok's US operations in early August.
The Walmart supermarket group had allied with him in these negotiations before the operation was rejected Sunday by ByteDance, the parent company of the social network.
"We think Microsoft wanted to buy TikTok only WITH its main algorithm, a concession on which the Chinese government and ByteDance absolutely did not want to give up," Daniel Ives, analyst for the investment company Wedbush Securities, had decrypted in a note Sunday.
For its part, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce had ignited a counterfire by amending - for the first time since 2008 - its list of technologies subject to export restrictions or bans.
This now includes, among other things, artificial intelligence technologies (data processing, content recommendation, etc.) that have made the success of the TikTok application, where videos are displayed on users' screens. mainly according to their tastes, and much less to their contacts.
TikTok
High-Tech