TikTok might be the breakthrough new social media app that everyone bar me is using these days, but its massive growth is has made it a political target.
India has already banned the app over security concerns and tiny-handed American President Donald Trump is threatening to do the same for the US. So to keep the app popular in one of its major markets, owner ByteDance is currently looking to sell TikTok to a US company. Which considering that most of its development team is actually based in the US, makes a lot of sense.
Who exactly could be the next owners of TikTok though? According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft have been heavily considering acquiring the new app, which will give it a presence in the social media space that it has not previously held – though it does have a small stake in Facebook and owns the more business-centric LinkedIn. In a blog post, the company revealed its willingness to try and meet Trump’s demands around the popular social media platform and how it could benefit the US economy:
Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President’s concerns. It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury,” the blog post reads. It adds that the company expects to move “quickly to pursue discussions with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, in a matter of weeks, and in any event completing these discussions no later than September 15, 2020
Those talks have stalled though with the US government reportedly not so keen on the idea of having TikTok owned stateside, despite the company even offering to add 10,000 jobs in the US. Something which makes the US government’s dislike for the company even more unusual, with Microsoft essentially then having control of all the data and deciding what gets done with it. Though you could argue that Microsoft and other US tech companies already have all that sensitive information anyway, through their many other applications.
Last Updated: August 4, 2020
