President Donald Trump had stated on this Monday that it could be easier if Microsoft would buy Chinese-owned TikTok in its entirety, rather than a small part of the social video app, because the name would be split across two companies, and suggested the company should pay the U.S. Treasury as part of the deal.
“I think buying 30% is complicated, and I suggested that he can go ahead, he can try,” Trump had told reporters in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Monday. He was referring to his conversation over the weekend with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The comments come a day after Microsoft confirmed in a statement that it has looked at buying TikTok in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (Souce : CNBC)
Accordingly, a transaction of this type would require the president to envision could also prove more expensive than the one Microsoft described on Sunday.It had been recorded on Monday that part of the amount paid to buy TikTok would have to come to the U.S. Treasury Department because it would then be making the deal possible.
“It’s a little bit like the landlord/tenant; without a lease the tenant has nothing, so they pay what’s called ‘key money,’ or they pay something,” Trump said. “But the United States should be reimbursed or should be paid a substantial amount of money, because without the United States they don’t have anything, at least having to do with the 30%.”
Microsoft’s largest acquisition to date was the 2016 acquisition of business social network LinkedIn, at $27 billion. Investors of the privately owned ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, valued TikTok at $50 billion, Reuters reported last week. We believe from a management and board perspective this is a unique deal of a decade opportunity with a price tag that could easily be consummated,” Wedbush analysts led by Dan Ives, who has the equivalent of a buy rating on Microsoft stock, wrote in a note distributed to clients on Monday. (Source : CNBC)