A smartphone with the Tik Tok logo is seen in front of an Oracle logo displayed in this illustration taken on September 14, 2020.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Oracle’s top lobbyist in Washington met privately with Senate aides about the company’s data storage deal with TikTok this spring, after a bill that could effectively ban the app social media in the United States passed the House in mid-March.
Oracle serves as a data center for US TikTok users. The House legislation would force TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to divest the social media app or face a possible ban in the United States.
“We had four meetings, primarily to discuss technical mitigation measures” for the data storage project, said Ken Glueck, Oracle’s executive vice president, who described the unpublished discussions to CNBC on Monday.
To arrange the meetings, Oracle turned to two lobbying firms: Fierce Government Relations and Polaris Government Relations, according to recently filed disclosure reports.
Glueck led discussions with staffers on the Senate Commerce Committee and the Intelligence Committee, he said. Two of the meetings were held in person and two via Zoom, he added.
Glueck said Oracle did not lobby for or against the TikTok bill and only disclosed meetings about mandatory filings for the sake of transparency.
If TikTok is banned, Oracle could face financial difficulties, according to market analysts.
“In a TikTok ban or shutdown scenario, Oracle would lose what is likely its largest OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) customer. This would be a negative, there is nothing to sugarcoat,” the analysts said of UBS in a research note. . The deal between TikTok and Oracle is reportedly worth $1 billion.
The Commerce Committee is chaired by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., while Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. heads the intelligence committee.
Although the original House bill was briefly stalled in the Senate, a similar bill passed the House on Saturday and already has key support in the Senate.
Cantwell and Warner said it could take up to a year for TikTok to successfully spin off ByteDance if President Joe Biden signs a ban.
News of the meetings came after TikTok lobbyists reportedly complained to lawmakers that Oracle had not lobbied enough against the legislation. TikTok spent millions on advertising and other lobbying efforts to try to prevent the legislation from passing Congress.
Records show Oracle paid $90,000 to Fierce and $80,000 to Polaris in the first three months of the year. These are the only two external companies paid by Oracle this quarter that have focused on this issue. The services included providing “technical assistance” to congressional offices regarding TikTok legislation, according to the disclosures.
The Internal Revenue Service defines this type of assistance as lawmakers turning to industry experts for advice, particularly when a bill is being deliberated in Congress.
Oracle has one of the most formidable in-house lobbying offices in Washington, and has said it has spent more than $2.4 million since Jan. 1 to influence policy, according to the disclosures. This included internal lobbying on TikTok, as well as a dozen other topics.
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