US President Donald Trump said on August that the famous Chinese app, TikTok, would be banned in the country starting on September 15, unless it was purchased by an American company and suggested that a large amount of the purchase agreement should go to the treasury.
Microsoft, the technology giant, is in discussions with ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok to buy its operation in the US.
“We had a great conversation with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. He called me to see how I felt about it. I told him look, it can’t be controlled for security reasons by China. It’s too big, too invasive. It can’t be. I don’t mind whether it’s Microsoft or somebody else, a big company... an American company buys it. It is probably easier to buy the whole thing rather than buying 30 percent,” Trump told reporters.
“I said how do you buy only 30 percent? Who is going to get the name, the name is hot. The brand is hot. Who’s going to get the name and who is going to get that when it’s owned by two different companies. So, my personal opinion was, you probably better off buying the whole thing rather than buying 30 percent. I think buying 30 percent is complicated and I suggested that he can go ahead. He can try,” added Trump.