It was this week that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella commented on the failed deal between his company and the social network Tik Tok.
The claim “was the strangest thing I’ve ever worked on” shocked the tech world, but was widely explained by the Microsoft executive.
Failed deal between Microsoft and Tik Tok and US government involvement.
It was at the Code Conference in Beverly Hills, California, where Satya Nadella spoke about the events that led to the agreement between Microsoft and the social network Tik Tok never seeing the light of day.
Beginning by saying that the negotiations were “the strangest thing” he has ever worked on, the CEO explains that he learned a lot from the case and that at the time he was eager to bring Microsoft’s security and cloud expertise to that social network.
The negotiations between the two companies began after the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, demanded that the North American version of the social network Tik Tok be separated from the Chinese company ByteDance. According to the then president of the United States, national security was at stake, due to the collection of data from users in that country.
For this reason, negotiations between the two companies began in August 2020. Soon after, specifically in September, the agreement fell apart.
Tik Tok caught in Beijing-Washington crossfire
According to the Microsoft CEO, “the Tik Tok was caught in the middle of various events between the two capitals,” Nadella explained, referring to several controversial and commercial issues that have strained relations between the United States and China.
He goes on to clarify that “President Trump had a specific point of view on what he was going to do, but he was simply not re-elected. The United States government had a series of specific requirements that later disappeared.”
Joe Biden’s government is reviewing national security
At this conference, Satya Nadella also revealed that Zhan Yiming, CEO of ByteDance, showed a lot of interest in Microsoft’s child safety procedures that can be found in Xbox tools and some products of the American company.
In his speech at the conference, Nadella also stated that he is unaware of Joe Biden’s ideas on this topic. Meanwhile, the US government has already assumed that it is reviewing all concerns related to the issue of national security.
