My goodness. Rumors have been swirling for weeks that the US Government is unhappy with the relationship between China and ByteDance, owners of wildly popular video service TikTok, and they’re coming to a head today with a Bloomberg report that the President is poised to take action:
President Donald Trump plans to announce a decision ordering China’s ByteDance Ltd. to divest its ownership of the popular U.S.-based music-video app TikTok, according to people familiar with the matter.
The US Government is concerned about the potential for the Chinese government to use TikTok to “gain data on U.S. citizens,” according to the report. For its part, ByteDance has been working to distance TikTok from its Chinese roots, insisting that no data is stored on servers in China, and appointing former Walt Disney Co. executive Kevin Mayer to run US operations.
In addition, even more rumors are swirling, that Microsoft may be involved in talks to acquire TikTok:
CONFIRMED; sources say @Microsoft in talks to buy https://t.co/1q4Y8HRbjG
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) July 31, 2020
Why Microsoft, which has been shedding consumer properties seemingly as fast as it can, would jump back into the fire with TikTok is perplexing, but the business is already huge and growing fast, so there may be something to it. We’ll be keeping an eye on the news to see how this all plays out, but for now, would buying TikTok be a good move for Microsoft? Let us know in the comments below.
