BreakingNews·200805-Microsoft could buy TikTok next month

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Microsoft could buy TikTok next month

The on-off talks between Microsoft and the parent company of TikTok are back on again. Microsoft has been interested in buying part of TikTok for many months. The tech giant has been in talks with the parent company ByteDance Ltd. Discussions between the two companies came to a halt last week when US President Donald Trump suggested that he might ban TikTok from the USA. He was worried that the personal details of over 100 million Americans could get into the wrong hands. President Trump changed his mind at the weekend after the CEO of Microsoft phoned him. Microsoft said it "would ensure that all private data of TikTok's American users is transferred to and remains in the United States."

TikTok is the latest social media platform to become hugely popular around the globe. Users upload very short videos of themselves lip-syncing to well-known songs, dancing, making funny faces or doing other humorous things. TikTok's owner ByteDance is a Beijing-based Internet company founded in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming. It now has over 800 million users worldwide. Microsoft is offering ByteDance $50 billion for the operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. However the business website Bloomberg disagrees with that valuation. It said: "The idea that TikTok - without the UK, India or dozens of other emerging markets - is worth $50 billion today is fanciful.