Microsoft’s Offer Rejected By TikTok Last Minute

Posted by: Kyeyune Andrew Jonathan in Tech September 14, 2020

Microsoft reported that its offer to buy the Chinese video-sharing app TikTok was turned down. This has paved way for another company called Oracle to make a last-minute bid.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump ordered the company to shut down and gave them a September 15 deadline. The Trump administration said TikTok and other Chinese apps pose national security threats.

After the president’s directive, Microsoft and Oracle led the race to buy the app from ByteDance, a Chinese firm. Oracle, a company that sells database technology reportedly won the bidding war citing people familiar with the matter.

Earlier on, Oracle seriously considered buying TikTok’s business in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. A spokesperson from TikTok, however, said the firm had not commented on either Oracle’s or Microsoft’s development.

Microsoft announced on Sunday that ByteDance said they will not be selling TikTok to them. They were however confident that their proposal would be good for TikTok users while protecting national security interests.
This paves way for Oracle which, by the way, Trump himself said would be “a great company’’ to take over TikTok operations. Oracle’s chairman is a big Trump supporter who held a fundraising event for Trump in February.

Trump ordered the company to be sold or closed earlier. This he said is because the data collected from the people can be shared with the Chinese government. Other apps like WeChat and equipment maker Huawei pose a national threat in the same way. The Chinese firms however denied these claims.

China’s Response;

China announced new government restrictions two weeks ago on tech exports aimed at delaying the TikTok sale. China therfore is restricting the sale of technologies such as AI until the government approves them.
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