Twitter In Talks With TikTok For Tie-up In US

Twitter has reportedly approached ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, for a potential merger, according to the report by Wall Street Journal. However, It is also unlikely that Twitter will pull together enough finance to bid for Microsoft's service.

Currently, Twitter’s market capitalization is ranked about $29 billion, dwarfed by Microsoft’s at more than $1.6 trillion. This implies that Twitter would need support from some investors to crack the TikTok deal.

Interestingly, Microsoft was already in talks with TikTok to possible acquisition in the US as well as in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Several reports suggest that Microsoft might also buy the Indian business if the Indian government removes the ban.

According to the report of CNBC, Microsoft could reportedly pay an estimated $10 billion to $30 billion to acquire TikTok's US operations from its Chinse parent company.

To recall, the US Trump administration’s executive order blocked TikTok parent company ByteDance from handling transactions in the US. The administration considers the TikTok as a potential security threat for the country. Trump administration’s order bounds the TikTok to sell out its US operation within September 15.

"The spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People's Republic of China continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by one mobile application, in particular, TikTok." the executive order reads.

In response to the executive order, TikTok in its blog post said, “We are shocked by the recent Executive Order, which was issued without any due process. What we encountered instead was that the Administration paid no attention to facts, dictated terms of an agreement without going through standard legal processes, and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses.”

Amidst Chinese Apps tension, President Donald Trump once again signed a new executive order on Thursday, which bans Tencent-owned messaging app, WeChat. The order will also have 45 days deadline and it will disallow the Chinese app from handling any transactions in the United States.