Report: Trump Weighing Approval Of TikTok IPO, With Oracle Taking Nearly 20 Percent Stake

A presidential decision should come by Friday, according to CNBC. Walmart would partner with Oracle, and an IPO could clear the stumbling block of Chinese developer Bytedance maintaining a controlling share of the popular app that holds millions of Americans’ personal data.

Oracle’s stake of TikTok if a sale is approved will be less than 20 percent, with Walmart also taking a piece of a newly formed company as a partner in the deal, CNBC reported Thursday.

ByteDance, the Chinese Internet company behind the app that’s a huge hit with teenagers, plans an IPO of remaining shares on a U.S. exchange to remedy Trump administration concerns around Chinese ownership of a company that holds Americans’ personal data. It’s not clear how much of the new company that takes hold of TikTok’s app ByteDance will maintain.

President Donald Trump is expected to make a decision on green-lighting the deal sometime Friday after meetings this week with a cabinet that isn’t entirely in alignment on the question, the news channel reported, citing anonymous sources.

ByteDance agreed to security revisions to a proposed deal laid out in a Treasury Department term sheet sent Wednesday night.

Oracle did not immediately comment on the CNBC report.

[Related: Oracle Will Take Minority Stake In New U.S.-based TikTok Owner: Report]

On Wednesday, Trump said he’s not happy with the Chinese company maintaining a controlling stake.

“I mean, just conceptually I can tell you I don’t like that,” Trump said.

A day earlier, Trump told reporters: “We‘re going to make a decision pretty soon. I have a high respect for Larry Ellison. He’s somebody I know. He’s been really a terrific guy for a long time. So we’re going to take a look. I heard they’re very close to a deal.”

In February, Oracle founder, executive chairman and CTO Larry Ellison raised money for Trump’s reelection bid with a lavish golf outing and roundtable at his Rancho Mirage estate in the Southern California desert.

Last weekend, Oracle confirmed it won the bitterly contested battle against Microsoft with a deal to “serve as the trusted technology provider” for ByteDance.

In an interview on CNBC around that time, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also confirmed ByteDance had chosen Oracle to be TikTok’s U.S. technology partner.

Trump had previously imposed a deadline of September 15 for a plan to sell TikTok, saying “it’ll close down” if an “appropriate deal” did not come together.

A TikTok IPO could be one of the largest the tech industry has seen in years, as analysts value the private company in the range of $50 billion.