Microsoft recently shared its efforts to acquire TikTok’s U.S. business in a public blog post. Then, President Trump officially confirmed the TikTok ban in the U.S. by September 15 if an acquisition isn’t approved. Apple was reportedly in the mix too but that was refuted. Now Microsoft is said to be considering buying all of TikTok’s global operations.
Microsoft was initially working on a deal to buy TikTok’s business in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. President Trump said he’s open to Microsoft or another “very American” company buying the app’s US business however, he said an “appropriate deal” would include the US Treasury getting “a lot of money”.
As part of that announcement, Trump also said he thought buying all of TikTok’s global business operations could be simpler instead of trying to figure out a partial acquisition.
Then we saw a report that Apple expressed “serious interest” in buying TikTok. However, the company quickly refuted that news from Axios’ sources.
Now, reported by the Financial Times, five sources close to the matter have shared that Microsoft is exploring purchasing TikTok’s global business.
Two of the factors in pursuing a total purchase reportedly include making things easier for TikTok employees as well as protecting the user experience, for example, that a user from one country could keep using the service when traveling abroad.
One source told the Financial Times that working on the deal was like playing “multi-dimensional chess” as it involves the U.S. and Chinese governments, parent-company ByteDance, as well as minority stakeholders in the company.
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