As Oracle tries to buy TikTok, a look at how the company started embracing and building ties with Donald Trump and his administration after the 2016 election
The tech giant stands out in Silicon Valley for its close ties to the administration, which must bless any deal for the social media app.
Context & Ripple Effects
Oracle has spent years positioning itself as Silicon Valley's exception on Washington: the company began embracing Donald Trump and his administration after the 2016 election while most of its peers kept their distance. That positioning became commercially decisive once the administration made itself the gatekeeper for any TikTok deal.
The payoff came quickly — Oracle confirmed its place in ByteDance's proposal to the US Treasury to become TikTok's "trusted technology provider" rather than an outright buyer. Subsequent reporting shows what that role actually looked like on the ground: Oracle staff reviewing TikTok's source code sat at desks beneath TikTok-controlled cameras, a requirement attributed directly to China's government. By 2025, Oracle had become the leading contender to help run TikTok US, with ByteDance preferring it while seeking to keep hands-on operational control.
First-order effects
- Oracle converts its unusual access to the Trump administration into the inside track on TikTok's US future, winning a role no rival with cooler relations could credibly claim.
- ByteDance gets a US partner the White House is more likely to bless, letting it answer the forced-divestiture pressure without surrendering all operational influence.
Second-order effects
- China's government keeps a direct oversight channel into the arrangement — the camera requirement over Oracle's source-code reviewers means any US approval must price in continued Beijing leverage rather than clean separation.
- Other Silicon Valley firms face a competitive disadvantage in politically gated deals: Oracle's model shows that cultivation of the administration, not just technical capability, determines who wins regulated assets.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, large tech M&A and partnerships in nationally sensitive sectors will consolidate around firms willing to align publicly with the governing administration, making political proximity a durable moat alongside technology.
- The 'trusted technology provider' structure points toward a standing category of politically sanctioned intermediaries between foreign-owned apps and US regulators — a role that reshapes how cross-border data platforms operate.
The trend: As Washington becomes the decisive approver for foreign-owned consumer platforms, tech companies' political alignment with the sitting administration is becoming as consequential as their engineering.