President Trump this week said that Oracle could take on TikTok after he issued an executive order that would ban the video app if its U.S. operations remain under Chinese control. The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Oracle is “seriously considering” purchasing the app’s operations in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
“Oracle is a great company,” the president said while answering questions during a White House event, adding that the owner, billionaire Larry Ellison, is a “tremendous person” and the software company “could handle it.”
He added that his Aug. 6 executive order to ban TikTok in the U.S. if it is not acquired by an American company will be effective on Sept. 15. The administration gave the social media company 45 days to shift its operations [over national security concerns].
India banned the app and dozens of others amid tensions with China. Members of the U.S. Military, Wells Fargo employees and TSA employees have been barred from downloading the app, citing security reasons, and the Senate passed a bill on Aug. 6 that would ban the app on government devices.
MacDailyNews Take: Certainly, Oracle could handle TikTok. Larry Ellison, the Executive Chairman and CTO of Oracle, was, famously, a “friend of Steve’s” who sat on Apple’s BoD until September 2002. Shortly after he resigned from the Board, Ellison acquired 70,000 AAPL shares: 60,000 common shares for $11.50 each and 10,000 shares for $13.99 each. If he still holds them today, there’s a tidy profit and, soon, that will turn into 280,000 shares (not that Ellison would even notice; he’s currently worth over $66 billion).
Speaking of insane amounts of money:
By the way, Apple is already worth $2.115 trillion. $115 billion in value gained in a day. IBM, established 109 years ago, is worth $110 billion. #Apple #2trillion
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) August 21, 2020