TikTok has its eyes on Texas for new headquarters

After threatening to ban video sharing platform TikTok, President Donald Trump said he approved Oracle Corporation's bid for the U.S. operations of the popular Chinese-based app, which could make its headquarters in Texas, Bloomberg reports.

The deal, which Trump said is approved "in concept," would result in a new company called TikTok Global. Oracle and Walmart Inc. will have a 20% stake in the new company and could bring upwards of 25,000 jobs to Americans and help the app avoid shutdown in the U.S. by becoming an American-based company.

"If they get it done, that's great," Trump said. "If they don't, that's OK, too."

Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that he had spoken to the president about the potential deal and let him know that "Texas would be the perfect place" for the new headquarters.

Though it has not been said where in Texas the headquarters would be based, some have speculated it could be in Austin since Oracle, a California-based company, has a strong presence in the city, where it has more than 2,500 employees. TikTok also opened an Austin office this year, which created over 2,000 jobs.

In order for the deal to move forward, the Chinese government must approve it and donate $5 billion to a Texas education fund, per the president's request.

The president had been threatening to ban the app since Aug. 6 and formally ordered the app's parent company ByteDance, to divest in its U.S. businesses on Aug. 14, citing security concerns, personal data protection and threats of propaganda, which garnered criticism from the ACLU.

Along with Oracle, companies like Microsoft and Twitter had also considered making a deal with TikTok, which has over 100 million U.S. users. ByteDance will retain 80% ownership of the company.

TikTok stated that Oracle will host all U.S. user data and technology and that it is working on a commercial partnership with Walmart. But the company has yet to confirm the new headquarter's location.

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