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Oracle, Silver Lake consortium to control 80% stake in TikTok in US

123 points by Mgtyalx

by slg

2 subcomments

Sometimes I'm truly baffled over the stories that the HN readership ends up mostly ignoring. When I heard about this news elsewhere, I came here fully expecting this to be high on the front page with hundreds of comments discussing it. For comparison's sake, the story about Tiktok shutting down[1] and then restoring service[2] in the US each had over 2500 comments. Meanwhile, 3 hours after this story was posted, this is the 14th comment.
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42753396
[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42759336

by elzbardico

2 subcomments

Oracle owning TikTok is one of the most unintentionally funny things to ever happen.

by HackerThemAll

1 subcomments

Oracle is then going to mandate license fees from every user, together with 22% support fees with 8% increase every year.
They'll then rewrite TikTok in Java, and migrate to Oracle Database.

by Justsignedup

1 subcomments

The most terrifying thing is there will be a trump-government representative in the governing body.
We are truly looking at 1984 as a blueprint not a warning.

by drewbitt

0 subcomment

Reminds me of Yahoo buying Tumblr. Mismatched. Their best bet is to change little to nothing, but not sure the administration will let them.

by greekrich92

0 subcomment

>Current users of the app will be asked to shift to a new app
So it's just going to fade into obscurity then huh

by Tarsul

2 subcomments

so US users will be cut off from the rest of the world? Wow. Thats crazy.

by ulfw

0 subcomment

Why would any company want to operate in America, sell to Americans or onboard American users anymore?
If you're not successful you just wasted a ton of time and money.
If you are successful the newUSA will force you to divest what you've build against your will.
Doesn't sound like a country worth investing in anymore.

by volleyball

1 subcomments

So Larry Ellison just took over Paramount group which is now looking to bid for Warner Brothers and CNN. And now Ellison is going to take over TikTok.
Paramount(being run by Larry Ellison's son) is looking to install the pro-israel-propagandist who has variously masqueraded as a liberal, a conservative and anti-woke free-speech champion, Bari Weiss[1] as CBS's editor-in-chief or co-president[2]. It also bears mentioning that Ellison is a life-long zionist, friend of the IDF and close personal friend of Netanyahu to whom he even offered a post at Oracle.[3]
This very much looks like a hostile take-over of the American mind by a tech billionaire who just overtook Elon Musk to become the world's richest man. People should be talking about whether they want to go through this all over again.
[1] - https://theintercept.com/2018/03/08/the-nyts-bari-weiss-fals...
[2] - https://archive.is/20250916040811/https://www.nytimes.com/20...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Larry_Ellison&old...

by ChrisArchitect

0 subcomment

Source: https://www.wsj.com/tech/details-emerge-on-u-s-china-tiktok-...
(which has a clearer title that's not that much different than days ago news: U.S. Investors, Trump Close In on TikTok Deal With China)

by hollerith

1 subcomments

>A new company will be created to operate TikTok, with U.S. investors holding a roughly 80% stake and Chinese shareholders owning the rest, the report said.
It would've been better for the mental health of our country if it had been banned (along with Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts).

by tw04

2 subcomments

I hope this is sounding alarm bells for everyone else as much as me.
Larry's son buys Paramount (CBS) and promptly fires Stephen Colbert, a money making machine who was leading his timeslot as what was, in hindsight, a clear message to everyone that nobody is safe if they don't fall in line.
Larry now gets TikTok, which like it or not is the most influential social media platform among today's youth.
Both are Trump fanatics. This is the next stage in the Ailes playbook that has already gone too far in ruining the American experiment.

0 subcomment

by nodejs_in_2025

1 subcomments

[flagged]

by tensorlibb

0 subcomment

I think this is a massively good step forward.
However, TikTok is still a brain rot slop machine and we would be right to question Ellison's motivations.

by SilverElfin

2 subcomments

What does this “stake” get America at all? Will they be able to change the algorithms or censorship or amplification on TikTok? The point of the ban was to avoid national security issues from having an adversarial state (China) controlling speech in America. Banning it entirely is the best way to avoid these problems.
As a reminder, TikTok forces staff to sign pledges to support China’s political system in order to work there and get stock awards:
https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths...