Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke with Donald Trump about trying to buy TikTok
Microsoft said it is committed to addressing Trump's concerns about the social media platform, whose parent company is based in China, and U.S. national security.
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Microsoft said Sunday it will continue talks to buy short-form video app TikTok after its chief executive spoke with President Donald Trump in a weekend of uncertainty clouding the future of the Chinese-owned app.
Microsoft said in a blog post that chief executive Satya Nadella and Trump had spoken and that the company is committed to addressing Trump's concerns about the social media platform. Trump previously indicated that he was not in favor of a deal and said he planned to ban TikTok in the United States.
He had also been considering options over the past few days to force Beijing-based parent company ByteDance to divest in TikTok in the U.S. due to national security concerns, according to people familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
Microsoft confirmed that it will "move quickly" on discussions with ByteDance and said it has given the U.S. government notice of a possible acquisition of the U.S. assets of TikTok.
This the first time Microsoft has confirmed that the company is in talks for Microsoft to purchase TikTok operations in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
"This new structure would build on the experience TikTok users currently love, while adding world-class security, privacy, and digital safety protections," the tech giant said in its post.
TikTok and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Buying TikTok would shift the tech landscape in the U.S. and put Microsoft in a powerful position to compete with Facebook and Google. Microsoft has focused mainly on enterprise software for the past decade, though it does own professional networking site LinkedIn.
The continuing discussions, which Microsoft said it expected to conclude by Sept. 15, hinged largely on buy-in from the Trump administration.
Trump told reporters Friday night that he planned to ban the app in the U.S., and had earlier indicated that he would do so in retaliation for what he saw as China's role in spreading the coronavirus pandemic.
"As far as TikTok is concerned, we're banning them from the United States," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.
But on Saturday morning, TikTok officials were still waging a public campaign to garner favor with officials and fans, and assured users in a TikTok video that the platform was "here for the long run."
Microsoft is one of the few U.S. tech giants in a position to buy the app, given its resources and the lack of a competing business.
Microsoft said on its blog that it would "ensure that all private data of TikTok's American users is transferred to and remains in the United States." Ensuring American data privacy has been a main crux of lawmakers' arguments against Chinese ownership of TikTok.
TikTok has continually insisted that it already keeps U.S. user data stored in the country and that it does not hand over data to the Chinese government.
TikTok, which has been downloaded more than 2 billion times, according to research firm Sensor Tower, lets users make short videos that show them dancing, cooking, pulling pranks or taking political stances. It is especially popular with teenage users, who have used the platform to take aim at Trump.
That included earlier this summer, when teens encouraged each other to reserve tickets to Trump's June rally in Tulsa, Okla., hoping to inflate the expected number of attendees even though they never planned to show up. The Trump campaign said it had no impact on the event.