LONDON: US tech giant Microsoft said its offer to buy TikTok was rejected, as a deadline looms for the Chinese-owned video app to sell or shut down its US operations.
TikTok has been at the center of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing, and President Donald Trump gave Americans a deadline to stop doing business with TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance — effectively compelling a sale of the app to a US company. Trump claims that TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail and conduct corporate espionage. “ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft,” the US tech giant said in a statement referring to TikTok’s owner.
“We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests,” the statement added.
Following Trump’s executive order, Microsoft and Oracle were possible suitors to take over TikTok operations. –Agencies
