Dell CEO Michael Dell is part of the consortium that intends to acquire TikTok’s US operations, according to US president Donald Trump.
Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Trump said Oracle founder Larry Ellison is one of a group bidding to acquire TikTok USA, confirming remarks his press secretary Karoline Leavitt made the previous day when she said the USA and China have finalized a deal to sell the app, that Ellison is involved, and that the deal will see the app’s famously addictive algorithm held by American interests.
Oracle’s cloud already hosts all traffic to the social network from within the USA.
Leavitt said the deal means TikTok’s American operation will be majority US-owned, and that US citizens will occupy six of its seven board seats.
Trump also said “Michael Dell is involved” without offering any further information. A merchant bank called BDT & MSD Partners states that it “has invested on behalf of Dell Technologies Founder Michael Dell, his family, and other like-minded investors” since its founding in 2009. It is unclear if BDT & MSD Partners would handle Dell, the man’s, involvement with TikTok, or if this deal has something to do with Dell, the company.
Perhaps both are involved. US law requires TikTok’s operator ByteDance to find a US buyer for TikTok’s stateside operations, on national security grounds. If TikTok ends up in the US-owned-and-run Oracle cloud, running on infrastructure built by America’s Dell using locally sourced parts whenever possible, it would go a long way towards showing the American public that the social network is no longer a security risk.
The Register anticipates a future Dell product that offers TikTok-grade hyperscale sovereign SaaS capabilities.
Trump also said he thinks Lachlan Murdoch, the scion of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, “is probably going to be in the group”.
News Limited famously acquired the early social network MySpace for $580 million in 2005 and offloaded it six years later for just $35 million after the likes of Facebook and Twitter rose to prominence. The media company has since made great use of social media to promote its many outlets and properties.
Trump and Leavitt both pointed to TikTok’s role in connecting the president to young voters ahead of last year’s presidential election and argued that finding a way to keep the app operating in the USA benefits political discourse and the US economy. ®