Oracle and Walmart jointly announced on Saturday that their TikTok deal continues to move forward. "The President has announced that ByteDance has received tentative approval for an agreement with the U.S. Government to resolve the outstanding issues, which will now include Oracle and Walmart together investing to acquire 20% of the newly formed TikTok Global business," the companies said.
They noted that as part of the deal, TikTok is creating a new company called TikTok Global that will be responsible for providing all TikTok services to users in U.S. and most of the users in the rest of the world and that the Trump administration has conditionally approved a deal where Oracle becomes TikTok’s secure cloud provider.
TikTok Global will be majority owned by American investors, including Oracle and Walmart, and will be an independent American company, headquartered in the U.S., with four Americans out of the five member board of directors.
According to the terms of the current deal, Oracle and Walmart say that TikTok Global will have an IPO in less than 12 months and be listed on a U.S. Exchange.
After the IPO, U.S. ownership of TikTok Global will increase and continue to grow over time.
Under the deal, the TikTok technology will be in the possession of TikTok Global, and comply with U.S. laws and privacy regulations. All data for the 100 million American TikTok users will be moved to Oracle’s Generation 2 Cloud data centers. "Based on decades of experience securing the world’s most sensitive data, Oracle’s Generation 2 Cloud fully isolates running applications and responds to security threats autonomously. This unique technology eliminates the risk of foreign governments spying on American users or trying to influence them with disinformation," the announcement said.
In addition to its equity position, the companies say, Walmart will bring its omni-channel retail capabilities to this deal—including its Walmart.com assortment, ecommerce marketplace, fulfillment, payment, and measurement-as-a-service advertising service.
TikTok Global will also create more than 25,000 new jobs in the U.S. and TikTok Global will pay more than $5 billion to the U.S. Treasury. In addition, TikTok Global—together with Oracle, SIG, General Atlantic, Sequoia, Walmart, and Coatue—will create an educational initiative to develop and deliver an AI-driven online video curriculum to teach children a variety of courses from basic reading and math to science, history, and computer engineering.