The own­er of Tik­Tok has cho­sen Ora­cle over Microsoft as the Amer­i­can tech part­ner that could help keep the pop­u­lar video-shar­ing app run­ning in the U.S., accord­ing to a source famil­iar with the deal who was not autho­rized to speak pub­licly about it.

Microsoft announced Sun­day that its bid to acquire TikTok’s U.S. oper­a­tions was reject­ed, remov­ing the tech giant from the run­ning a week before Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump promis­es to fol­low through with a plan to ban the Chi­nese-owned app in the U.S. over spy­ing concerns.

Tik­Tok and the White House declined to com­ment Sun­day. Ora­cle didn’t return a request for com­ment but has pre­vi­ous­ly declined comment.

Wal­mart, which had planned to part­ner with Microsoft on the acqui­si­tion, said Sun­day it “con­tin­ues to have an inter­est in a Tik­Tok invest­ment” and is talk­ing about it with ByteDance and oth­er parties.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has threat­ened to ban Tik­Tok by Sept. 20 and ordered ByteDance to sell its U.S. busi­ness, claim­ing nation­al-secu­ri­ty risks due to its Chi­nese own­er­ship. The gov­ern­ment wor­ries about user data being fun­neled to Chi­nese author­i­ties. Tik­Tok denies it is a nation­al-secu­ri­ty risk and is suing to stop the admin­is­tra­tion from the threat­ened ban.

It’s not clear if the pro­posed deal will only cov­er TikTok’s U.S. busi­ness, and, if so, how it will be split from the rest of TikTok’s social media plat­form, which is pop­u­lar world­wide. ByteDance also owns a sim­i­lar video app, Douyin, for the Chi­nese market.

Any deal must still be reviewed by the Com­mit­tee on For­eign Invest­ment in the Unit­ed States, known as CFIUS, a U.S. gov­ern­ment group chaired by the Trea­sury Sec­re­tary that stud­ies merg­ers for nation­al-secu­ri­ty rea­sons. The pres­i­dent can approve or deny a trans­ac­tion rec­om­mend­ed by the pan­el, though Trump has already voiced sup­port for Ora­cle as a “great com­pa­ny” that could han­dle the acquisition.

Microsoft said in a Sun­day state­ment that ByteDance “let us know today they would not be sell­ing TikTok’s US oper­a­tions to Microsoft.”

Microsoft added it was “con­fi­dent our pro­pos­al would have been good for TikTok’s users, while pro­tect­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­ests.” The com­pa­ny said it “would have made sig­nif­i­cant changes to ensure the ser­vice met the high­est stan­dards for secu­ri­ty, pri­va­cy, online safe­ty, and com­bat­ing disinformation.”

Tik­Tok, which says it has 100 mil­lion U.S. users and about 700 mil­lion glob­al­ly, is known for its fun, goofy videos of danc­ing, lip-sync­ing, pranks and jokes. It’s recent­ly become home to more polit­i­cal con­tent such as the come­di­an Sarah Coop­er, who drew a large audi­ence by lip-sync­ing Trump’s own often-dis­joint­ed state­ments from pub­lic appearances.

But the app has also raised con­cerns because of its Chi­nese own­er­ship. The White House has cracked down on a range of Chi­nese busi­ness­es, includ­ing tele­com equip­ment mak­ers Huawei and ZTE and mes­sag­ing app WeChat, over wor­ries that they would enable Chi­nese author­i­ties to get U.S. user data. Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers have raised con­cerns about cen­sor­ship and children’s privacy.

Tik­Tok denies that it has shared user data with the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment or that it would do so if asked. The com­pa­ny says it has not cen­sored videos at the request of Chi­nese author­i­ties and insists it is not a nation­al-secu­ri­ty threat.

Tik­Tok has sued to stop the ban, but not the sale order. The nego­ti­a­tions have been com­pli­cat­ed by sev­er­al fac­tors, includ­ing Trump’s repeat­ed demands that the U.S. gov­ern­ment should get a “cut” of any deal, a stip­u­la­tion and role for the pres­i­dent that experts say is unprecedented.

In addi­tion, the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment in late August unveiled new reg­u­la­tions that restrict exports of tech­nol­o­gy, like­ly includ­ing the arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence sys­tem Tik­Tok uses to choose which videos to spool up to its users. That means ByteDance would have to obtain a license from Chi­na to export such tech­nol­o­gy to a for­eign company.

The deal had come togeth­er rapid­ly after the admin­is­tra­tion ramped up its threats against Tik­Tok this sum­mer, despite TikTok’s efforts to put dis­tance between its app and its Chi­nese own­er­ship. It installed for­mer Dis­ney exec­u­tive Kevin May­er as its Amer­i­can CEO, but he resigned in August after just a few months on the job, say­ing the “polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment has sharply changed.”

Both Microsoft and Ora­cle are known more for their busi­ness soft­ware offer­ings than for those intend­ed for consumers.

Ora­cle pri­mar­i­ly makes data­base soft­ware. It com­petes with tech giants such as Microsoft and Ama­zon that pro­vide cloud ser­vices as well as busi­ness-soft­ware spe­cial­ists like Salesforce.

Some ana­lysts see Oracle’s inter­est in a con­sumer busi­ness as mis­guid­ed. Ora­cle should focus on enter­prise-mar­ket acqui­si­tions and not invest in a con­sumer app like Tik­Tok that doesn’t fit with the rest of its busi­ness, said Jef­feries ana­lyst Brent Thill, who com­pares the idea to Delta Air­lines buy­ing a motor­cy­cle com­pa­ny. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Thill sug­gest­ed that Tik­Tok com­peti­tors like Face­book and Snapchat should be “cheer­ing on Ora­cle” as a buy­er, because Ora­cle wouldn’t “add a lot of val­ue to the app.”

Ora­cle co-founder Lar­ry Elli­son is unusu­al among tech exec­u­tives for his pub­lic sup­port of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, host­ing a fundrais­er for him in Feb­ru­ary at his Ran­cho Mirage, Cal­i­for­nia, estate. The com­pa­ny also hired a for­mer top aide to Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence; its CEO, Safra Catz, also served on Trump’s tran­si­tion team.

The pres­i­dent said on Aug. 18 that Ora­cle was “a great com­pa­ny” that “could han­dle” buy­ing Tik­Tok. He declined to state his pref­er­ence between Ora­cle and Microsoft as buyers.