US President Donald Trump instructed reporters on Monday that Microsoft is in talks to purchase TikTok and that he wish to see a bidding warfare over the app.
Microsoft declined to remark. TikTok and ByteDance didn’t instantly reply to Reuters’ requests for a remark exterior common enterprise hours.
TikTok, which has about 170 million American customers, was briefly taken offline simply earlier than a legislation requiring its Chinese language proprietor ByteDance to both promote it on nationwide safety grounds or face a ban took impact on January 19.
Trump, after taking workplace on January 20, signed an government order in search of to delay by 75 days the enforcement of the legislation.
Trump stated final week that he was in talks with a number of folks over shopping for TikTok and would probably have a call on the favored app’s future in 30 days.
The US president has beforehand stated that he was open to billionaire Elon Musk shopping for the social media app if the Tesla CEO wished to take action. Musk, nonetheless, has not publicly commented on Trump’s provide.
Extra just lately, AI startup Perplexity AI on Sunday made a proposal to merge with TikTok, with the US authorities getting as much as half of the brand new firm in future, a supply instructed Reuters on Sunday.
The reported talks mark the second time that Microsoft has been within the body to purchase TikTok.
Throughout his first time period, Trump ordered TikTok to separate its US model from ByteDance citing nationwide safety considerations.
Microsoft emerged as a high bidder in 2020, however the talks quickly collapsed, and Trump’s divestment push ended a number of months later when he left workplace.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella referred to as that deal the “strangest factor I’ve ever labored on.”
The US authorities had a “specific set of necessities after which it simply disappeared,” he stated in 2021.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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