Time for some good old politics. US President Donald Trump is taking a rather hands-on approach regarding the takeover of TikTok, for which Microsoft is the leading candidate.
He gave an ultimatum today at the White House, saying that the video sharing social network must find a new owner by September 15, otherwise the service would be banned in the country — that’s more or less a window of 45 days.
Trump further confirmed that Microsoft has the go-ahead to continue negotiations, in fact anyone in can purchase the Chinese company as long as they are based in America.
This report from NYT has the lowdown:
“It can’t be controlled for security reasons by China. A very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States, because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen.”
Surprisingly, Microsoft emerged in pole position to acquire the rising social giant, with the software titan explaining in a statement earlier this week that it is already in discussion with owner ByteDance and the US government over a potential takeover.
Redmond guarantees that once the acquisition is complete, that data of the American users will be moved to the United States and stored on local datacenters.
Chances are, the takeover talks are finalized soon.
Expect an announcement in this regard by the end of the month.
