Why do so many companies want to buy TikTok? TikTok has become one of the most popular applications of the moment, but the app developed by the ByteDance company is not going through its best moment. The United States Government wants to ban the app in their country, since they consider it a national security threat, claiming that the app collects data from users to send it to the Chinese Government. Amid all this controversy, several companies want to buy TikTok. One of these is very important, and it will surely ring a bell.
Twitter, Oracle or Microsoft are three of the big companies that want to buy TikTok, but the Chinese-origin app has or has had other suitors. Among them, Alphabet, the parent company of Google. According to a report from Bloomberg, Alphabet considered acquiring a part of the social network, although eventually. and for an unknown reason, the negotiations failed.
- TikTok mocked Reels, the new Instagram feature
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- Instagram launched Reels feature, short 15-second videos to compete with TikTok
Alphabet can still acquire a portion of TikTok through CapitalG, one of its investment arms that focuses on Chinese companies. However, the purchase would not be the same as what Microsoft or Twitter want to make, since these two companies intend to acquire the application in English-speaking countries such as the United States. Neither Google nor ByteDance have mentioned anything about it.
It is normal that an application that is relatively new and that is getting a lot of popularity has so many suitors, but in this case there is another reason: the possible ban of the app in the United States. The US Government has already made it clear that they will ban TikTok if it is not purchased by a US company. The Trump administration set a date for TikTok to reach a deal if they didn’t want it to be banned. The date was initially set for September 12, but it has been extended until November 12, 2020.
The app is currently in negotiations with Twitter, Oracle and Microsoft. The latter is the most possible one to acquire a part of the app, which would focus on the division of English-speaking countries, such as the United States, UK, Australia and other countries. Microsoft has already clarified that if an agreement is reached, they will locate the servers outside of China and carry out a security analysis of the app. Two points that seem to convince the United States government.
Twitter and Oracle have also shown interest in TikTok, although neither company has been as transparent as Microsoft, so the requirements of both companies are unknown.
There are still a few months until the negotiation deadline is over, but we will likely hear news soon.
