Microsoft confirms plans to acquire TikTok

Can’t have been a very comfortable weekend for TikTok, right? One has to feel for both the social media company and the United States as President Donald Trump has proclaimed that he will attempt to ban the Chinese app from the country entirely. Not like the USA has more pressing issues to worry about, but whatever. In any case, with TikTok potentially being removed from a country within which it is immensely popular, it’s been forced into taking some drastic measures. One of them, it seems, is an acquisition by Microsoft which has been confirmed to be in the planning stages.

Following a conversation between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Donald Trump, Microsoft will continue holding conversations with TikTok that would see the tech giant purchase the app and continue to run it in the USA. Discussing these decisions in a blog post, Microsoft stated that it was “committed to addressing Trump’s concerns about the social media platform”, while obviously continuing to make a crap-load of cash.

Microsoft will allegedly “move quickly” to conduct and conclude discussions with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance that will see the US assets of the app move over to the American owned tech corporation. Not only that, if the deal goes as Microsoft wants, it will also acquire TikTok operations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Speaking to the end result of the acquisition, Microsoft said, “This new structure would build on the experience TikTok users currently love, while adding world-class security, privacy, and digital safety protections.” Which sounds exactly like the phrasing Chinese-fearing individuals want to be hearing right now.

Microsoft has stated that it expects the negotiations to finish up on 15 September, so that’s still some time away. If Microsoft does acquire TikTok, it will be a pretty massive investment for the company, considering that the app has been downloaded over 2 billion times. While Microsoft already owns two popular social media platforms – LinkedIn and Skype – neither has the current relevancy of TikTok, especially among younger users. If anything, it could be a wildly lucrative deal for the company while also appeasing American politicians.

(Source: Washington Post)