ByteDance, which was trying to save its TikTok application in the US and other countries after Donald Trump threatened to ban it, was at this time last year. Microsoft was a potential saver. It had attempted to acquire the app in the US and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Australia, but lost to Oracle. Geekwire reported that Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, gave new details at the Code conference. She said it was "the strangest thing" she had ever worked on.
It was a chaotic sequence of events that began when Trump threatened to make TikTok sell to ByteDance, citing security and privacy concerns. Microsoft was a potential buyer. However, the deal that the company struck with Oracle and Walmart was scrapped in February 2021 by President Joe Biden.
Nadella stressed that TikTok came originally to Microsoft to seek a partner in cloud and security to help it navigate the delicate political landscape between China, the US, and China. He said, "That's how it started." But I was quite intrigued. It's a wonderful property, I have to say. Everyone has witnessed that growth, and I suppose the rest is history.
TikTok has now reached one billion users in just four years. It took Instagram nearly eight years to reach the 1 billion mark after its original release, and almost six years after Facebook acquired it in 2012.
Trump had, I believe, a certain point of view about what he wanted to accomplish there. But then he just gave up, he said. It was fascinating. It was for a time that I felt the administration had a set of requirements. Then they disappeared.
Swisher continued to pursue the topic, asking Nadella questions about Microsoft's negotiations for Trump. He said that President Trump had a certain point of view about what he wanted to accomplish there. It was fascinating. It was for a time that I felt the administration had a set of requirements. Then they disappeared.
According to Brad Smith, Microsoft president, Trump said that he would rather ban the app than sell it to the US. He wrote that this "threw into disarray all the careful negotiations we had with ByteDance in order to buy TikToks businesses in the U.S.A and the three other nations." After Nadella called Trump personally, Trump agreed to allow a deal to take place.
ByteDance claimed that Trump "ghosted" the site after Oracle won the bid. This was effectively a statement by ByteDance, who ordered the company to sell its US TikTok assets.
Microsoft learned a lot about foreign tech negotiations, even though it was left empty-handed. Smith stated that it was possible to operate a foreign service from a domestic datacenter with tight security, privacy and digital safety controls, while still providing adequate transparency to local officials.
