President Trump addressed the TikTok sale saga again Monday, and his most recent comments seemingly lend credence to speculation that his previous threat to ban the popular social media app was a negotiation tactic to force its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to fully divest its U.S. operations. To be clear, Trump doubled down on the threat, but this time he affirmed he would be okay with Microsoft buying the app and set a deadline for a potential sale, whereas he previously suggested a ban was imminent.
"I don't mind whether it's Microsoft or someone else, a big company, a secure company, a very American company buys it," Trump said. "It'll close down on Sept. 15 unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out a deal, an appropriate deal, so the Treasury of the United States gets a lot of money."
Microsoft has confirmed it's working on a deal, but still has some negotiating to do. The Trump administration has scrutinized TikTok lately because of concerns that ByteDance is harboring American users' data and could potentially hand it over to the Chinese government down the line amid heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing. Read more at Bloomberg.
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