San Francisco, Aug 10 (IANS) The Microsoft-TikTok deal may not happen as odds of the deal are “not higher than 20 per cent,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Monday.
The probability of Microsoft buying TikTok is “not higher than 20 per cent” since the initial price offered by the US software giant was akin to “robbing the owner when his house is on fire”.
The chances of Twitter buying TikTok is said to be even smaller, as the micro-blogging platform “just doesn’t have enough money.”
The report, quoting sources, said that the Chinese firm ByteDance which is the owner of TikTok is “set to step up its fight against US President Donald Trump’s executive order to ban its TikTok app in the US”.
ByteDance is preparing to escalate its legal and public relations battle against Trump’s executive order to ban the app in the US.
ByteDance declined to comment on the report.
Meanwhile, TikTok could file a lawsuit against the Trump administration in the US as early as Tuesday over an executive order prohibiting transactions with the short video sharing platform’s Chinese owner within 45 days, NPR reported.
The lawsuit will argue that Trump’s sweeping ban on the application is unconstitutional because it did not give the company a chance to respond, said the source-based report on Saturday.
The executive order issued by Trump on August 6 said that data collected by TikTok threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party to access personal and proprietary information of US citizens.
The order said the spread of mobile applications developed and owned by Chinese companies “continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
“We have made clear that TikTok has never shared user data with the Chinese government, nor censored content at its request,” TikTok said in a blog post after the executive order.
TikTok alleged that the executive order was issued “without any due process.”
–IANS
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