US President Donald Trump said that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok and expressed his desire for a competitive bidding process for the social media platform’s sale.
When questioned by reporters about whether the US tech giant was making an offer, Trump responded, "I would say yes," while also noting that multiple companies had shown significant interest in TikTok.
Both Trump and his successor, Joe Biden, have long pushed for ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to divest its US operations due to national security concerns.
It comes as Trump signed an executive order last week to reverse a Biden Administration ban on TikTok that briefly took the app offline for its 170m users in the United States.
Despite granting TikTok a 75-day reprieve from the ban, Trump had been the first president to start pressuring ByteDance to sell its app.
In August 2020, ByteDance approached Microsoft as a possible buyer - something which the US company's chief executive later described as "the strangest thing".
Later, TikTok chose rival Oracle as a potential partner - although that deal also never happened.
Trump has previously said that he was in discussions with several parties about purchasing TikTok and expects to make a decision on the app's future within the next 30 days.
A spokesperson for Microsoft said the company had "nothing to share at this time". The BBC has also reached out to TikTok for comment.
Earlier on Monday, the US president had addressed a gathering of Republican politicians in Florida and spoke about the proposed sale of TikTok.
"We'll see what happens. We're going to have a lot of people bidding on it," he said.
"If we can save all that voice and all the jobs, and China won't be involved, we don't want China involved, but we'll see what happens," he added.
Previous names linked with buying TikTok include billionaire Frank McCourt and the Canadian businessman Kevin O'Leary - a celebrity investor on Shark Tank, the US version of Dragon's Den.
The biggest YouTuber in the world Jimmy Donaldson - AKA MrBeast - has also claimed he is in the running after a number of investors contacted him following an earlier tweet signalling his interest.
Source: BBC
BDST: 1153 HRS, JAN 28, 2025
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