US President Donald Trump said that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok, Reuters reports. Microsoft has so far refrained from commenting, and TikTok and ByteDance have not responded to journalists' inquiries.
TikTok, which has about 170 million users in the United States, temporarily suspended operations before the law came into effect, requiring its Chinese owner ByteDance to sell the platform for national security reasons or face a ban.
After taking office on January 20, Trump signed an executive order that postponed the ban for 75 days. He also recently announced that he is in talks with several companies to buy TikTok and plans to make a decision on the app's future within 30 days.
The president also stated that he was ready to support the acquisition of TikTok by billionaire Elon Musk if he was interested. Recently, it also became known that Perplexity AI startup offered to merge with TikTok, giving up to half of the new company to the US government.
By the way, this is the second time that Microsoft is considering acquiring TikTok. During his first term, Trump ordered TikTok to separate its US version from ByteDance, citing national security concerns.
In 2020, Microsoft became the main contender for the purchase, but negotiations soon collapsed, and Trump's attempt to sell the company ended a few months later when he left office.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called the deal "the strangest I've ever worked on."