The fate of TikTok, the wildly popular video-sharing app, has involved plenty of plot twists since President Donald Trump signed an executive order in late August that promised to effectively ban TikTok from doing business in the US over national security concerns — unless the Chinese-owned app sold its US operations to an American company by September 20.
The latest turn: Microsoft, which had been seen as the frontrunner among several potential bidders, said on Sunday it isn’t buying the app. Instead, Oracle, a database software company whose co-founder and CEO are both open supporters of Trump, is the winning bidder.
But wait — Oracle isn’t actually going to buy TikTok. Instead, it’s offered to buy the rights to take over TikTok’s US data operations (which Microsoft also originally wanted to do, but Trump discouraged — more on that later), further complicating the situation.
The proposed deal between Oracle and ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, involves a number of extraordinarily political, volatile, and complex factors. By this point, you may be confused about what’s going on and how TikTok got here in the first place. Here’s what we know so far, and what the implications of this deal are.
Right now, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the details of the proposed TikTok-Oracle deal, since the terms aren’t public.
But one thing we do know is that Oracle has said it’s proposing to become a “trusted technology provider” of ByteDance, rather than buying the company’s US operations outright.
Here’s Oracle’s statement Monday morning: “Oracle confirms Secretary Mnuchin’s statement that it is part of the proposal submitted by ByteDance to the Treasury Department over the weekend in which Oracle will serve as the trusted technology provider. Oracle has a 40-year track record providing secure, highly performant technology solutions.”
If this Oracle-TikTok proposal goes through as planned — not as a full sale — it raises the question of why President Trump issued the executive order pressuring TikTok to sell off its entire US operations in the first place.
Trump said he issued the executive order over grave national security concerns. Namely, that the Chinese government could allegedly pressure TikTok to funnel sensitive US user data back to Beijing because ByteDance is a Chinese-owned company. Another concern is that TikTok could be censoring topics on TikTok that the Chinese government doesn’t approve of.
TikTok has repeatedly asserted that it stores all US data in the US and Singapore, which would ostensibly make it difficult for the Chinese government to reach. It’s also denied censoring content in the US on behalf of the Chinese government.
While there isn’t any public evidence proving that the Chinese government has ever coerced TikTok to spy on US users or control what they see and discuss on the app, it’s also hard to rule out that could ever happen. The Chinese government regularly exerts authority over domestic companies for political purposes, such as pressuring tech companies to hand over user data.
What’s a real head-scratcher is that it’s not clear how Oracle handling TikTok’s US data — without spinning TikTok US into a separate company free from ByteDance’s oversight — would assuage any of these security or censorship worries.
“If these things were a concern before, it’s not clear why that wouldn’t be a concern now,” Bobby Chesney, a professor at the University of Texas who specializes in national security law, told Recode.
Although it’s unknown so far if Trump will approve this deal, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said about the deal on CNBC Monday morning, “We have a lot of confidence in both Microsoft and Oracle; they [ByteDance] have chosen Oracle.”
All this has unfolded as CFIUS, a US national security regulatory agency, is conducting an ongoing review into TikTok — a process that Trump seemingly bypassed to issue his executive orders about the app. Mnuchin said CFIUS’s technical teams will be reviewing the proposal with Oracle and ByteDance this week and that the agency will then issue a recommendation to President Trump on whether or not to approve the deal. He also said that, as part of the proposal, TikTok has promised to create 20,000 new US-based jobs.
Another key player in all of this is the Chinese government. Previously, it had reportedly said that it won’t let ByteDance sell off its secret sauce — its proprietary recommendation algorithm — to the US. So from ByteDance’s perspective, a partial sale to Oracle that doesn’t include the prized algorithm could be a win-win situation for both the US and the Chinese government.
But then what was the point of the executive order forcing a sale, even if Trump had no intention of actually enforcing it and even if these national security concerns weren’t serious enough to warrant a full-on sale of TikTok US in the first place.
Oracle’s co-founder Larry Ellison and CEO Safra Catz are rare supporters of Trump among mostly liberal Silicon Valley tech executives (Facebook board member Peter Thiel is another notable exception).
Catz’s and Ellison’s support of Trump hasn’t always gone over well with Oracle’s largely liberal-leaning employees, many of whom are immigrants working on H1B engineering visas and whose legal residency status has been threatened by Trump’s anti-immigration policies.
“I think with Oracle and the relationship they have with the administration, one wonders, ‘Now, what kind of a level playing field was this?’” said Chesney. But that’s all speculative, Chesney said, since the terms of the deal are still unknown. It’s also entirely possible that Oracle simply made a higher offer than Microsoft, or laid out better terms.
Chesney also suggested that maybe ByteDance viewed Oracle as the most likely company to appease not just the US government but the Chinese government as well.
Even some Oracle employees — admittedly ones who disapprove of their company leaders’ ties to the Trump administration — are scrutinizing the TikTok deal. Employees on Monday had not heard anything internally from Oracle leadership as of midday and were hunting around for details.
One employee in a meeting on Monday commented that they worried about their ability to recruit their friends to the company if they think Oracle “is complicit in the corruption” of the Trump administration, according to an internal Slack message seen by Recode that relayed the comment.
“I see this as kissing Trump’s ass and damaging Oracle even further in the developer community, giving them more of a reason to hate us,” said one employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of losing their job for publicly criticizing the company.
Another said many colleagues “have a gross taste in their mouth about the whole process,” because of the Trump administration’s “role in all this and the perceived closeness of Larry and Safra to Trump. Just feels to us like that’s what got the business.” But ultimately, this employee said, a TikTok deal could be a good business play for the company.
“As someone who has stock, I’m not hating that part of it right now,” said the employee.
But the manner in which Trump has gone about forcing this TikTok deal — issuing unexpected and confusing executive orders, making contradictory statements to the press, openly suggesting that TikTok should essentially bribe the US government to sweeten the deal, and now considering a deal with terms that Trump initially dismissed until a similar offer was put forward by business leaders who have supported him in the past — has raised troubling concerns with civil liberties advocates and political analysts about the president’s exertion of authority and the free market in the US.
TikTok is also a wildly popular consumer app with 100 million US users, so its fans are left fretting over whether the US government might end up actually shutting TikTok down.
For users, probably not much will change if Trump approves the bid from Oracle, as the data company manages data on the back end and shouldn’t change how the TikTok app actually looks or feels to users.
There are concerns about how Oracle will use this data, and whether it would use it to inform its other operations. But given all the twists and turns that have led to this politically complicated deal, exactly what’s next in the TikTok-Trump saga at this point is anyone’s guess.
Theodore Schleifer contributed reporting to this article.
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Most job search advice is cookie-cutter. The advice you’re following is almost certainly the same advice other job seekers follow, making you just another candidate following the same script.
In today’s hyper-competitive job market, standing out is critical, a challenge most job seekers struggle with. Instead of relying on generic questions recommended by self-proclaimed career coaches, which often lead to a forgettable interview, ask unique, thought-provoking questions that’ll spark engaging conversations and leave a lasting impression.
Your level of interest in the company and the role.
Contributing to your employer’s success is essential.
You desire a cultural fit.
Here are the top four questions experts recommend candidates ask; hence, they’ve become cliché questions you should avoid asking:
“What are the key responsibilities of this position?”
Most likely, the job description answers this question. Therefore, asking this question indicates you didn’t read the job description. If you require clarification, ask, “How many outbound calls will I be required to make daily?” “What will be my monthly revenue target?”
“What does a typical day look like?”
Although it’s important to understand day-to-day expectations, this question tends to elicit vague responses and rarely leads to a deeper conversation. Don’t focus on what your day will look like; instead, focus on being clear on the results you need to deliver. Nobody I know has ever been fired for not following a “typical day.” However, I know several people who were fired for failing to meet expectations. Before accepting a job offer, ensure you’re capable of meeting the employer’s expectations.
“How would you describe the company culture?”
Asking this question screams, “I read somewhere to ask this question.” There are much better ways to research a company’s culture, such as speaking to current and former employees, reading online reviews and news articles. Furthermore, since your interviewer works for the company, they’re presumably comfortable with the culture. Do you expect your interviewer to give you the brutal truth? “Be careful of Craig; get on his bad side, and he’ll make your life miserable.” “Bob is close to retirement. I give him lots of slack, which the rest of the team needs to pick up.”
Truism: No matter how much due diligence you do, only when you start working for the employer will you experience and, therefore, know their culture firsthand.
“What opportunities are there for professional development?”
When asked this question, I immediately think the candidate cares more about gaining than contributing, a showstopper. Managing your career is your responsibility, not your employer’s.
Cliché questions don’t impress hiring managers, nor will they differentiate you from your competition. To transform your interaction with your interviewer from a Q&A session into a dynamic discussion, ask unique, insightful questions.
Here are my four go-to questions—I have many more—to accomplish this:
“Describe your management style. How will you manage me?”
This question gives your interviewer the opportunity to talk about themselves, which we all love doing. As well, being in sync with my boss is extremely important to me. The management style of who’ll be my boss is a determining factor in whether or not I’ll accept the job.
“What is the one thing I should never do that’ll piss you off and possibly damage our working relationship beyond repair?”
This question also allows me to determine whether I and my to-be boss would be in sync. Sometimes I ask, “What are your pet peeves?”
“When I join the team, what would be the most important contribution you’d want to see from me in the first six months?”
Setting myself up for failure is the last thing I want. As I mentioned, focus on the results you need to produce and timelines. How realistic are the expectations? It’s never about the question; it’s about what you want to know. It’s important to know whether you’ll be able to meet or even exceed your new boss’s expectations.
“If I wanted to sell you on an idea or suggestion, what do you need to know?”
Years ago, a candidate asked me this question. I was impressed he wasn’t looking just to put in time; he was looking for how he could be a contributing employee. Every time I ask this question, it leads to an in-depth discussion.
Other questions I’ve asked:
“What keeps you up at night?”
“If you were to leave this company, who would follow?”
“How do you handle an employee making a mistake?”
“If you were to give a Ted Talk, what topic would you talk about?”
“What are three highly valued skills at [company] that I should master to advance?”
“What are the informal expectations of the role?”
“What is one misconception people have about you [or the company]?”
Your questions reveal a great deal about your motivations, drive to make a meaningful impact on the business, and a chance to morph the questioning into a conversation. Cliché questions don’t lead to meaningful discussions, whereas unique, thought-provoking questions do and, in turn, make you memorable.
Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.
CALGARY – Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. reported a third-quarter profit of $2.27 billion, down from $2.34 billion in the same quarter last year.
The company says the profit amounted to $1.06 per diluted share for the quarter that ended Sept. 30 compared with $1.06 per diluted share a year earlier.
Product sales totalled $10.40 billion, down from $11.76 billion in the same quarter last year.
Daily production for the quarter averaged 1,363,086 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down from 1,393,614 a year ago.
On an adjusted basis, Canadian Natural says it earned 97 cents per diluted share for the quarter, down from an adjusted profit of $1.30 per diluted share in the same quarter last year.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 90 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.
CALGARY – Cenovus Energy Inc. reported its third-quarter profit fell compared with a year as its revenue edged lower.
The company says it earned $820 million or 42 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, down from $1.86 billion or 97 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter totalled $14.25 billion, down from $14.58 billion in the same quarter last year.
Total upstream production in the quarter amounted to 771,300 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down from 797,000 a year earlier.
Total downstream throughput was 642,900 barrels per day compared with 664,300 in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Cenovus says its funds flow amounted to $1.05 per diluted share in its latest quarter, down from adjusted funds flow of $1.81 per diluted share a year earlier.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.
