Although Trump talked about banning the popular TikTok application in the United States, after a conversation with the first man of Microsoft he changed his mind and in the end TikTok could still fall into the hands of the Americans.
The company behind TikTok, the Chinese company ByteDance, now has 45 days to reach an agreement with Microsoft to take over TikTok, which covers the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The details of the value of the potential acquisition are not known at this time, but it is certainly worth billions of dollars. After a conversation with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the company called on other US companies to cooperate in the purchase of minority parts of TikTok.
When Trump started talking about banning the video app in the United States, many American users were worried that they would lose access to their favorite app, but a download by Microsoft would solve that problem.
Users would continue to have the same experience with TikTok, while Trump would be pleased that users would finally have first-class security, privacy and digital protection, Microsoft said, adding that they would make sure all private data of US TikTok users was transferred to servers in the US and stay on them.
They will then try to delete all data stored on servers outside the United States, although a TikTok spokesman told CNBC that data on US users is stored in the United States.
With the potential acquisition of TikTok, Microsoft overnight would become a strong player in the US social media market and a competitor in that market to companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. If no agreement is reached between Microsoft and ByteDance, Trump will ban TikTok in the United States.
