Posted on Monday, September 14 2020 @ 13:19 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
In a brief statement released on Sunday, Microsoft announces that Chinese tech firm ByteDance has rejected the Redmond giant's bid to buy the US operations of TikTok.
ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests. To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation, and we made these principles clear in our August statement. We look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas.
Engadget
and others claim ByteDance will go forward with a deal proposed by Oracle:
The Wall Street Journal adds that “Oracle is set to be announced as TikTok’s ‘trusted tech partner’ in the U.S., and the deal is likely not to be structured as an outright sale." A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Engadget as well that TikTok plans to move forward with Oracle, though the terms of the deal, and whether it can even be considered an acquisition per se, remain unclear.
There's just one more day to go before the September 15th deadline set by US President Trump. If no deal is reached, TikTok's US operations will be shut down.
