Following President Trump’s executive order banning TikTok from the United States, many U.S. companies are looking to merge. Twitter is the first U.S. company to publicly announce interest.
What We Know:
- Last Thursday (Aug. 6), President Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok, a Chinese-owned app, under the pretense that the app “continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States”. The executive order allows TikTok a 45-day deadline to be acquired by a U.S. business otherwise the app will be banned from operating in the United States.
- Meanwhile, TikTok has made plans to sue President Trump over the executive order claiming it “sets a dangerous precedent for the concept of free expression and open markets”. The lawsuit further claims that the president failed to provide any evidence that the app is a threat, NPR reported.
- Furthermore, given that TikTok’s biggest investors come from the U.S., the app has made great efforts to allow the U.S. profit involvement. “We’ve hired nearly 1,000 people to our US team this year alone, and are proud to be hiring another 10,000 employees into great paying jobs across the US.”
- Amid this political chaos, many U.S. businesses have expressed interest in TikTok. Twitter is the first company to publicly announce interest; though the logistics of the business merger remain unknown. Twitter’s stock price is $29.38 billion and the rumors of the acquisition called its stock to rise up to 5% on Monday. In comparison, TikTok has been valued at approximately $50 billion; ultimately causing skepticism regarding if Twitter can afford TikTok.
- A video sharing precursor to TikTok called Vine was bought out by Twitter back in 2012. Many believe the acquisition of Vine by Twitter is what caused the app to fail and ultimately discontinue.
- Twitter and Microsoft are the only public bidders for Bytedance’s TikTok, but others will surely emerge.
The future of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app remains unknown as Trump’s 45-day deadline looms.
