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The owner of TikTok has chosen Oracle over Microsoft as its American tech partner. Managing Director at Wedbush Securities Dan Ives said the deal will allow the popular video-sharing app to continue operating in the US. (Sept. 14)

AP Domestic

President Donald Trump has signed off on a business proposal between TikTok, Walmart and Oracle that would allow the social networking app to continue to operate in the U.S.

One of Trump’s stipulations for approving the deal was a $5 billion commitment from the companies to create an education initiative that teaches children America’s “real history,” the President said. 

Trump first mentioned the education fund on Saturday as he left the White House for a campaign rally in North Carolina. “We’re going to be setting up a very large fund for the education of American youth,” Trump told reporters as he announced “conceptually” signing off on the TikTok venture.

“That’ll be great. That’s their contribution that I’ve been asking for,” Trump added. 

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During a campaign speech later that evening, Trump laid out more details surrounding how the proposed education commitment unfolded.

He told the audience in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that when talking with the heads of the companies, he asked them to “do me a favor, could you put up $5 billion into a fund for education, so we can educate people as to real history of our country. The real history, not the fake history.”

The Trump-approved, U.S.-based version of TikTok will employ 25,000 people and likely be headquartered in Texas, the President said. 

Trump’s education announcement comes days after he slammed the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project curriculum, which reframes the way American history and slavery is taught in schools. 

“The left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods, and lies. There is no better example than the New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project,” Trump said Thursday during a speech at the National Archives in Washington. 

He claimed the project rewrites “American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.”

Trump also said he would create a national “1776 commission” to would “promote patriotic education.” 

Follow Dalvin Brown on Twitter: @Dalvin_Brown. 

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