Companies looking to acquire TikTok's American operations are turning to Microsoft and Google for cloud services as the deadline for the sale approaches.
As reported by The Information and citing people "involved in the talks," some of the companies that are bidding for TikTok but don't have their own cloud computing resources - such as smaller investor groups - have been having discussions with staff at Microsoft and Google about using their cloud to keep the app running.
TikTok is currently hosted by Oracle, having done so exclusively since 2022 in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's order that ByteDance sell its US TikTok operations during his previous term in office.
At the time, Oracle came close to buying the unit, but the plan was eventually dropped after President Joe Biden took office.
The company hoped that hosting in Oracle would alleviate national security concerns, but it failed to do so.
In December 2024, TikTok lost an appeal against the US government's decision to ban its service in the country, and the app was briefly taken offline while still under President Biden. When Trump came back into office, he signed an executive order seeking to delay the ban by 75 days.
Since then, companies have been looking to buy the company's US operations, with Microsoft and Oracle included in those reported to be in talks.
The deadline for a sale is currently set at April 5. It remains unclear who the successful bidder will be - if there is one at all.
The Information reports that it is likely that Oracle will continue to provide services to TikTok in the event of a sale, but that the discussions with Google and Microsoft could suggest that some of TikTok's cloud agreements with Oracle might be up for grabs.
Google and Microsoft did not provide a comment to The Information, and Oracle didn’t respond.
Elsewhere, TikTok is a customer of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services for storing the data of its TikTok users.
In Europe, TikTok's operations are split between Green Mountain in Norway, and an Irish data center - likely in Echelon's facility.
Earlier this month, TikTok committed to investing $8.8bn in data centers in Thailand.
