Satya Nadella Says Microsoft Is Still Interested In TikTok Acquisition

JAKARTA – Microsoft acknowledged its failure in acquiring TikTok in the US in 2020. This was revealed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. He said the failure to take over TikTok was the strangest thing the company had ever experienced.

The reason is that in August 2020, TikTok was discussing its plan to sell a short video company based in the United States (US) after the Donald Trump administration banned TikTok unless ByteDance (TikTok's parent company) wanted to sell its application to a US company.

At that time, Microsoft became one of the most potential buyers to acquire TikTok US. However, Microsoft failed to take over TikTok in September 2020 after Oracle was chosen to be TikTok's cloud server provider.

"First of all, you have to remember, TikTok came to us, we didn't go to TikTok," Nadella said as quoted by CNBC International, Tuesday, September 28, 2021.

"TikTok is caught between the many problems they have in the two capitals, and they want to partner," he added.

At first, TikTok looked for a cloud provider that could provide security services at the same time. The Microsoft CEO said in the end the US government lost interest in pushing for the acquisition.

"But I'm quite interested," said Nadella. "And let's say it's (TikTok) a nice property, of course."

In fact, US TikTok sales never happened. After Trump stepped down and Joe Biden came to power, the ban on TikTok was lifted.

"President Trump, I think he has a certain kind of point of view about what he's trying to do there. There was a period of time where I felt that the US Government had certain requirements, and then they just disappeared," Nadella said.

However, Satya Nadella admits that Microsoft is in a good position to buy or cooperate with TikTok. According to a recent report, currently the TikTok app has around one billion monthly users who come from various parts of the world.

On the other hand, Microsoft also has the ability to moderate content and keep children safe on social media which is what TikTok parent company ByteDance is interested in.

"You should know something about running social media, which we know through Xbox Live or LinkedIn," said Nadella.

Although the opportunity to take over TikTok has passed, it seems that Nadella is still interested in buying the short video application.