Oracle: New TikTok board will have 4 Americans, possibly including Masayoshi Son

On Wednesday local time, Maria Bartiromo, anchor of the US Fox Business Channel, quoted Oracle executives as saying that if Oracle's deal with TikTok is successful, SoftBank founder and billionaire Masayoshi Son may be added to TikTok's board of directors.

According to previous media reports, after the TikTok transaction is successful, the board of directors of the newly established TikTok Global company in the United States will consist of 5 members.

Bartiromo told Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" that she had a conversation this week with Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, who claimed that four of the five board members "will be American."

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But if Son is now added to the TikTok Global board, it would be the latest twist in the TikTok deal's progress.

The Trump administration has said TikTok's use of personal American user data could pose a threat to U.S. national security.

As of Tuesday, media reports still believe that TikTok Global's board of directors includes Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok's parent company ByteDance. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon is also a member of TikTok Global's board of directors. The rest of the board of directors are heads of ByteDance's existing investment institutions, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital.

Over the past month, SoftBank has been exploring the acquisition of TikTok's assets in India. According to media reports, since negotiations to acquire TikTok's Indian business made no progress, Son has become very active in participating in the acquisition of TikTok.

SoftBank holds a minority stake in ByteDance. In 2018, a consortium led by SoftBank invested $3 billion in ByteDance.

Representatives from SoftBank, ByteDance, TikTok and Oracle did not immediately respond to media requests for comment.

SoftBank's official website shows that the company has a long history of investing in American technology companies, including Amazon, Tesla, Netflix and Alphabet, and the total investment in these four American technology companies alone is $3.9 billion. However, Masayoshi Son and his $100 billion Vision Fund suffered heavy losses from their investment in shared office space provider WeWork.

What is unclear is whether SoftBank is in talks to acquire a new stake in TikTok’s U.S. business and whether it plans to divest its existing stake in ByteDance.

According to media reports, Oracle is in talks to acquire a 12.5% ​​stake in TikTok Global, while Walmart wants to acquire a 7.5% stake in TikTok Global. ByteDance will hold an 80% stake in TikTok Global. TikTok Global governs TikTok's global business outside of China and is headquartered in Texas, USA.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has issued an injunction requiring Apple and Google to stop providing TikTok download and update services in their U.S. app stores starting this weekend. Before the injunction came into effect, ByteDance asked a U.S. court on Wednesday to block the U.S. Department of Commerce from enforcing the injunction.