Oracle's top lobbyist in Washington met privately with Senate staffers this spring in regards to the company's data-sharing agreement with TikTok, following the passage of a bill within the House of Representatives in mid-March that will effectively ban the social media app within the United States could.
Oracle acts as a knowledge center for US TikTok users. The House laws would require TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance to divest the social media app or face a ban within the United States.
“We had four meetings, primarily to discuss the technical remedies of the data storage project,” said Oracle EVP Ken Gluckwho described the previously unreported conversations to CNBC on Monday.
To organize the meetings, Oracle turned to 2 lobbying firms: Fierce Government Relations and Polaris Government Relations, in response to Glueck and newly filed disclosure reports.
Glueck led discussions with staff from the Senate Commerce Committee and the Intelligence Committee, he said. Two of the meetings took place in person and two took place via Zoom, he added.
Glueck said Oracle didn’t lobby for or against the TikTok bill and only disclosed the meetings on mandatory filings to make sure transparency.
If TikTok is banned, Oracle could face financial headwinds, in response to market analysts.
“If TikTok were to be banned or shut down, Oracle would likely lose its largest OCI [Oracle Cloud Infrastructure] Customer. That would be negative, there is no sugarcoating it,” Analysts at UBS said in a research note. According to reports, the deal between TikTok and Oracle is value it 1 billion dollars.
The Commerce Committee is chaired by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., while Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. heads the Intelligence Committee.
Although the unique House bill briefly stalled within the Senate, an identical bill passed the House on Saturday and is already gaining significant support within the Senate.
Both Cantwell and Warner have said it could take as much as a yr for TikTok to be successfully divested by ByteDance if President Joe Biden puts a ban into effect.
News of the meetings got here after TikTok lobbyists allegedly complained to lawmakers that Oracle had not done enough lobbying against the laws. TikTok has spent thousands and thousands on promoting and other lobbying to forestall Congress from passing the law.
Records show Oracle paid Fierce $90,000 and Polaris $80,000 in the primary three months of the yr. They were the one two outside firms that Oracle paid this quarter that focused on this issue. The services reportedly included providing “technical assistance” to congressional offices regarding TikTok laws.
The Internal Revenue Service defines one of these assistance as when lawmakers turn to industry experts, particularly when a bill is being considered in Congress.
According to disclosures, Oracle has one of the crucial impressive internal lobbying shops in Washington and said it has spent greater than $2.4 million yr up to now to influence policy. This included internal lobbying at TikTok, amongst a dozen other issues.
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