Tech giant Oracle will oversee the security for a licensed copy of the recommendation engine powering TikTok under the terms of a proposed divestment deal, according to a senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday.
Determining next steps for the algorithm, currently owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, has been one of the most closely watched issues during negotiations over TikTok’s future.
The Trump administration official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the emerging deal, said they believe the plan will satisfy national security concerns if TikTok divests from its Chinese parent, ByteDance. President Joe Biden signed bipartisan legislation before leaving office, requiring the Chinese company to sell its assets to an American company or face a ban.
American officials have previously warned the algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect.
“It wouldn’t be in compliance if the algorithm is Chinese. There can’t be any shared algorithm with ByteDance,” said a spokesperson for the House Select Committee on China.
Oracle would receive a copy of the algorithm and oversee the app’s security operations. The algorithm would be “fully inspected” and monitored for any abnormal behavior, the senior White House official said Monday.
In a call with reporters, the official later emphasized that the content recommendation formula would be retrained using U.S. data in order to make sure the system is “behaving appropriately.” It is currently unclear if retraining the copy of the algorithm would essentially create a separate TikTok experience just for domestic U.S. users, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed in a Monday press briefing that “TikTok users in the U.S will be able to see videos posted by users in other countries and vice versa.”
“What the president will sign later this week is an executive order, essentially declaring that the terms of this deal meets America’s national security needs,” the White House official said. He notes that China is expected to sign and approve a framework deal for TikTok’s divestment by the end of the week, upon which Trump will issue a 120 day reprieve, giving both nations time to get necessary agreements finalized.
Full details on investors have not been released. However, the official confirmed that the U.S. operations will be a new joint venture with a board of directors that will have a majority of American members—Oracle and Silver Lake, a private equity firm, are the only confirmed consortium participants so far.
The White House official also said that under the preliminary deal—which still requires Chinese officials to sign off on a framework agreement—the United States will not take equity stake in the new venture or have representation on the controlling committee.
Trump, a Republican, has extended the deadline several times as he worked to reach a deal to keep TikTok available. He spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday.
—Chris Megerian, Associated Press