Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Monday called on the U.S. to reject Oracle’s TikTok deal, citing national security concerns.
Oracle Corp. early Monday announced it would team up with China’s ByteDance to keep TikTok operating in the United States, beating Microsoft in a deal structured as a partnership rather than an outright sale.
President Donald Trump ordered the sale of TikTok last month over concerns user information could be passed to China’s Communist Party government. TikTok has as many as 100 million U.S. users.
Hawley in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pushed for a closer look at the deal.
“CFIUS should promptly reject any Oracle-ByteDance collaboration, and send the ball back to ByteDance’s court so that the company can come up with a more acceptable solution,” Hawley wrote. “ByteDance can still pursue a full sale of TikTok, its code, and its algorithm to a U.S. company, so that the app can be rebuilt from the ground up to remove any trace of CCP influence.”
Any corporate shell game that leaves TikTok in the hands of ByteDance, “will simply perpetuate the original problem, leaving U.S. national interests and everyday users at serious risk,” the Missouri lawmaker wrote.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.