Last week, Microsoft received the backing from U.S. President Trump buy the U.S. operations of the ByteDance-owned TikTok. However, the tech giant seems to have a bigger dream–buy TikTok’s entire global business. Microsoft is going after a deal to buy all of TikTok’s global business, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing five people with knowledge of the talks.
In a separate report from Reuters, another source familiar with the discussions told Reuters that Microsoft had not raised the prospect of buying all of TikTok in its negotiations with ByteDance. Microsoft had said it was seeking to buy the assets of TikTok in North America, Australia and New Zealand. It had not disclosed how much it was willing to pay. Microsoft has declined to comment on the report.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that President Donald Trump plans to order Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, to sell its stake in the app on Friday. According to pool reports, Trump told reporters, “We’re looking at TikTok, we may be banning TikTok.”
The report comes shortly after President Trump told reporters that the United States is looking into banning TikTok due to national security concerns.
In the meantime, the U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously voted to approve a bill banning federal employees from using video-sharing app TikTok on government-issued devices, amid threats from the White House to ban the company.
TikTok has faced scrutiny from the U.S. government over its handling of user data and amid larger tensions between the United States and China. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that the United States is “looking at” banning popular Chinese video app TikTok in the wake of the new law in Hong Kong.
TikTok, a social video app which allows users to create short videos with special effects and has become wildly popular with teenagers in the US. Earlier this year, TikTok was the third most popular app among US teens. Currently, TikTok has more than 800 million users worldwide.
