SAN FRANCISCO — The saga of TikTok had everything: Ominous threats of surveillance. A forced fire sale. Threats of retaliation. Head-spinning deal terms that morphed by the hour. Dark horse bidders and a looming deadline.
Now, as the dust settles on the weeks of drama over the social media app, investors and others are asking what it was all for.
The answer? A cloud computing contract for the Silicon Valley business software company Oracle, a merchandising deal for Walmart and a claim of victory for President Trump.
In the deal announced on Saturday, which was spurred by Mr. Trump’s national security concerns over TikTok, the social media app said it would separate itself from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and become an independent entity called TikTok Global. Oracle would become TikTok’s new cloud provider, while Walmart would offer its “omni-channel retail capabilities,” the companies said.
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