Microsoft In Race For TikTok, Says Donald Trump; Satya Nadella Weighs $200 Bn Buy To Gain 170 Mn Users

Indian-origin Satya Nadella-led Microsoft is reportedly in talks to acquire the US arm of ByteDance Ltd.'s TikTok, according to US President Donald Trump, who commented on the subject on Jan. 27 without offering many additional details. Notably, TikTok is one of the largest social media companies in the world and has posed an immense challenge to Google's YouTube.

The news follows Trump’s temporary suspension of a nationwide ban—which the US Supreme Court had imposed due to national security concerns—on the well-known Chinese-owned video-sharing app.

Reportedly, TikcTok has more than 170 million users in the US. TikTok’s parent firm, ByteDance, is reportedly looking to sell the app for $200 billion.

Notably, the US government has threatened to shut down TikTok if the company does not effect a sale. As the deadline nears, a number of top tech companies have thrown in their hat into the ring.

The reason behind the fire-sale is that there have been security concerns about TikTok’s connections to the Chinese government, which lawmakers worry could allow foreign entities to access user data and influence American users.

On Monday, Trump informed reporters that Microsoft is negotiating to buy TikTok and that he hopes to see a bidding war for the app. “I would say yes. A lot of interest in TikTok. There’s great interest in TikTok,” Trump reportedly said in response to reporters on Air Force One asking if Microsoft was negotiating a deal.

“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 keep China out of it, because we don’t want China involved—we’ll see where it goes,” Trump also said during an event in Florida earlier Monday.

Notably, Trump has given ByteDance a 75-day window to sell its US operations to a domestic organisation and urged other bids to enter the race.

Although the US president once argued that the app should be banned because of security concerns, his position seems to have changed, which may be in part because of how popular pro-Trump content is on the TikTok app. 

The news of Microsoft reportedly back as a contender to acquire TikTok comes five years after Microsoft, along with Oracle, sat on the acquisition table for TikTok in 2020. This was as a result of Trump’s pressure on ByteDance at that time to sell its US operations or risk being banned due to national security concerns.

During a 2021 interview, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had said that he was “kind of intrigued” about TikTok approaching him.

Later, TikTok had selected rival Oracle, although the agreement was also never finalised.

Microsoft has refrained from commenting regarding recent reports about the TikTok acquisition.