Microsoft’s CEO says trying to buy TikTok was “the strangest thing”

During an interview with journalist Kara Swisher at the Code conference, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella came forward with new information regarding the negotiations that happened while trying to acquire TikTok. 

“It was the strangest thing I’ve ever worked on,” Nadella Said, describing his attempt to save the TikTok app in the U.S. and elsewhere after Donald Trump’s administration threatened to ban it. 

If you haven’t heard about Trump’s efforts in banning TikTok from the U.S., here’s a little recap. 

Due to privacy and security concerns, former U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok’s American operations to a U.S. owner.  

Microsoft was interested and offered to become a potential investor. However, TikTok eventually agreed to make a deal with Oracle and Walmart, but the agreement vanished when President Joe Biden’s Administration stepped in back in February. 

According to Nadella, TikTok was the one who came first to Microsoft hoping to create a partnership to help it maneuver its way through the complicated political scene between China and the U.S. 

“That’s kind of how it started,” Microsoft’s CEO said. “But I was pretty intrigued. I must say, it’s a great property. Obviously, everyone has seen that growth and what have you, and I guess the rest is history.” 

TikTok officially reached a billion users this week, managing to obtain a jaw-dropping number of subscribers in less than four years.  

If you’re not shocked by the number, you should note that your favorite photo and video sharing app, Instagram, passed one-billion users after eight years from its initial release and nearly six years after it was acquired by Facebook in 2012. 

“President Trump, I think had sort of a particular point of view on what he was trying to get done there, and then just dropped off,” he said. “I mean, it was interesting. There was a period of time when I felt that the [administration] had some particular set of requirements, and then they just disappeared,” Nadella said. 

When Trump publicized his intentions of banning TikTok, Micorosoft was already negotiating with the tech giant’s parent company ByteDance. That “threw into disarray the careful negotiations we had pursued with ByteDance to buy TikTok’s business in the U.S. and the three other countries,” he said.  

According to Engadget, “Trump only relented and allowed a deal to happen after Nadella called him personally.” 

While Microsoft gained nothing from the back-and-forth negotiations, the code conference journalist noted that the incident brought to light a number of vital lessons. 

 “It’s possible to run a foreign technology service in a domestic data center with strict security, privacy, and digital safety controls in a manner that provides appropriate transparency to local government officials,” Swisher said.