‘There’s A Great Interest’: Trump Says Microsoft in Talks to Acquire TikTok, Calls for Bidding War- wna24
Washington: TikTok, the Chinese video-making social media app shut down services in the United States in response to a federal ban but soon bounced back after Donald Trump’s inauguration. In a latest development, the US President has said that tech giant Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok in the US…
While speaking to reporters about TikTok, US President Donald Trump has said that Microsoft is in talks to purchase TikTok in the country. “I would say yes… A lot of interest in TikTok. There’s great interest in TikTok”, Trump said while interacting with reporters aboard Air Force One.
Earlier on Monday in Florida, Trump also spoke at length, about the Chinese social media platform’s future in the United States. In his speech, referring to TikTok, Trump said, “We’ll see what happens. We’re going to have a lot of people bidding on it, and 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.”
TikTok said it shut down the platform late Saturday because of a federal law that required parent company ByteDance to sell its U.S. operation by Sunday. Google and Apple also removed TikTok from their digital stores. The law, which passed with wide bipartisan support in April, allows for steep fines.
While the company that runs TikTok in the U.S. said on X that the steps Trump outlined Sunday provided “the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties,” the TikTok app remained remained unavailable for download in Apple and Google’s app stores.
The law that took effect Sunday required ByteDance to cut ties with the platform’s U.S. operations due to national security concerns. However, the statute authorized the sitting president to grant a 90-day extension if a viable sale was underway.
Although investors made some offers, ByteDance has said it would not sell. Trump said his order would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect” and “confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”
“Let me tell you, as the person who wrote the bill, the extension was within the 270-day window, which closed at 12:01 a.m. this morning,” he said, adding that only if the president certifies there are “legally binding documents” showing a divestiture is on the way would there be an extension. “I think Trump can at least make an argument that the language is meant to cover any president,” University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said.