After the bid was rejected by TikTok’s owner Bytedance, Microsoft says it’s not acquiring TikTok’s operations. Microsoft ultimately failed to achieve TikTok after a week of talks back and forth that involves the Trump administration.
“ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft,” says Microsoft in a declaration.
“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.”
Last month, Microsoft confirmed that they were pursuing a deal to purchase TikTok’s operations in the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It was also reported that Microsoft might be considering buying all of TikTok’s global operations with the Financial Times. It suggested talks around this particular deal were at the “preliminary” stage.
Because of the failed bid, Microsoft has left the door open for Oracle as a probable buyer. Last month, reports showed that Oracle was running for the TikTok acquisition, and earlier today, it was reported that Larry Ellison’s enterprise software giant had vaulted Microsoft for the deal.
However, the prospective deal with Oracle isn’t without complications. Formerly, President Trump has initially threatened a September 15th deadline for the TikTok Sale. Then, further setting it to November 12th as the deadline, it came with the threat of a possible ban.
This has led to TikTok to sue the Trump administration over an unproven lack of due process, and the likelihood of China blocking a deal or allowing it to be retailed with its vital algorithm.
It is not yet clear on what will specifically happen to TikTok in the US now that Microsoft has been unsuccessful in its bid. With this, Oracle looks like the most probable candidate, and it may serve as more of a cloud services provider than a parent company with straight control. With this ongoing TikTok saga, it’s sensible to expect some more rotations and turns in the coming days and weeks.
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