According to US President Donald Trump, Microsoft is negotiating to buy TikTok, and he wants to see a “bidding war” over the social media app’s sale.
Trump said, “I would say yes” when reporters asked if the US tech giant was getting ready to make an offer. He then said that “great interest in TikTok” was being shown by a number of companies.
For years, both Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden have attempted to get ByteDance, the Chinese parent firm of TikTok, to sell its US operations on the basis of national security.
Last week, Trump issued an executive order to postpone a ban on TikTok imposed by the Biden Administration, which momentarily shut down the service for its 170 million US users.
Trump was the first president to begin pressuring ByteDance to sell its app, even though he had granted the app a 75-day reprieve from the ban. In August 2020, ByteDance approached Microsoft as a potential buyer, which the US company’s CEO later called “the strangest thing.” TikTok then selected rival Oracle as a potential partner, but that deal also fell through. Trump has previously stated that he was in talks with multiple parties about buying TikTok and expects to make a decision on the app’s future within the next 30 days. A Microsoft representative said the company had “nothing to share at this time.” The BBC has also contacted TikTok for comment.
The US president had discussed the planned sale of TikTok earlier on Monday while speaking to a group of Republican legislators in Florida.
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“We’ll observe the situation. There will be a large number of bidders,” he said.
“If we can save all that voice and all the jobs, and China won’t be involved, we don’t want China involved, but we’ll see what happens,” he stated.
Former names associated with purchasing TikTok include Canadian entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, a celebrity investor on Shark Tank, the US equivalent of Dragon’s Den, and millionaire Frank McCourt.
The world’s biggest YouTuber, Jimmy Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast, has stated that he is in the running after several investors reached out to him after he expressed interest in his previous tweet.
SOURCE: BBC
