Group of investors led by Larry Ellison, world's 2nd richest man, favourites to buy TikTok

The identity of TikTok's future owner is becoming clearer as the United States and China inch closer towards an agreement for the popular social media platform.

Agreement

On Sep. 15, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. and China had reached the outline of a deal on the short-form video platform.

The agreement’s framework would allow U.S. investors to buy a controlling stake in TikTok, and was announced by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant after negotiations in Madrid with China's Vice Premier He Lifeng.

Trump said that he would be speaking to China’s president Xi Jinping on Sep. 19 by telephone to finalise the agreement.

TikTok has long been a controversial platform with many U.S. lawmakers citing national security concerns over the app’s operations and its China-based parent company, ByteDance.

Trump had unsuccessfully tried to ban it in his first term.

That ban was successfully put into law by his successor (and predecessor) Joe Biden. However, Trump delayed the ban from going into effect, vowing to “save” the platform.

Future visit

The ban’s deadline has been pushed back several times, with the agreement averting the Sep. 16 deadline.

The deadline has now been further extended to Dec. 16, to allow investors to complete a deal.

China had previously been very reluctant to let the U.S. take control of TikTok, with local media outlets likening it to the theft of Chinese technology.

But the WSJ reported that China’s leaders have had a change of heart, believing that allowing the sale would keep the prospect of Trump visiting China in the near future alive.

But who would buy it?

Many names have been mooted to buy TikTok, with YouTube star MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, one of several potential investors.

MrBeast had announced in January that he would be part of an investor group that intended to make a bid, and other prominent social media leaders like Elon Musk, owner of X, also mooted.

But it looks increasingly likely that a group of investors led by Larry Ellison,  co-founder of software and cloud services company Oracle, will be the ultimate victor.

Ellison is, depending on when you last checked, the world's second-richest man, although he briefly overtook Elon Musk on Sep. 10, according to Bloomberg.

Ellison is also a major Republican donor and was part of a group that had initially tried but failed to buy TikTok in Trump’s first term.

Oracle is already well-versed with TikTok, as it has been a “longtime TikTok partner”, according to the WSJ.

Existing U.S. users will be asked to use a new app, which TikTok has already built and is currently testing, and user data, a sticking point with Chinese ownership, will be handled by Oracle’s facilities in the U.S.

TikTok’s content-recommendation algorithm, considered its crown jewel, will be recreated by its engineers using “technology licensed" from ByteDance.

Top image via @AmbXieFeng/X and Wikipedia