Today the president seemed to bless the nascent Microsoft-TikTok agreement, continuing its evolution on a possible transaction. After declaring last Friday that he would have preferred to see TikTok bandit who sold to a U.S.-based company, Trump changed his tune over the weekend. TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns a portfolio of apps and services.
A weekend phone call between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the American premier appears to have changed his mind, leading the software company to publicly share on Sunday that he was pursuing an agreement.
So today the president, backing an agreement between an American company and ByteDance on TikTok, also said that he expects a portion of the sale price to end up in the accounts of the American government.
The American president has long struggled with basic economic concepts. For example, those who pay tariffs. But seeing Trump claim that he expects to receive a part of an agreement between two private companies that he is actually forcing on the altar is surreal.
To fully express his opinion, we have transcribed approximately the relevant minutes of his explanation since this morning, when asked about the weekend call with Microsoft's Nadella. It is worth reading (the strong points in bold are those of ProWellTech):
We had a great conversation, he called me, to see if, or not, how I felt about it. And I said, look, it can't be controlled for security reasons from China. Too big, too invasive. And it can't be. And here's the deal. I don't care if it is Microsoft or someone else - a big company, a safe company, a very American company - you buy it.
It's probably easier to buy everything than to buy 30% of it. Why do I say how do 30%? Who will get the name? The name is hot, the brand is hot. And who will get the name? How do you do it if it belongs to two different companies? So my personal opinion was that you'll probably be better off buying everything rather than buying 30% of it. I think the 30% purchase is complicated.
And, I suggested that he can go on, he can try. We set a date, set a date, around September 15th, at which point it will be out of service in the United States. But if someone, be it Microsoft or someone else, buys it, it would be interesting.
I said that if you buy it, whatever the price, this applies to whoever owns it, because I imagine it is essentially China, but more than anything else, I said that a very substantial part of that price will have to go to the Treasury of the United States. Because we are making the deal possible. Right now they don't have any rights, unless we give it to them. So if we want to give them the rights, then it has to come in, it has to come to this country.It is a bit like the tenant of the landlord [relationship]. Uh, without a lease, the tenant has nothing. So they pay what is called "key money" or pay something. But the United States should be reimbursed or a significant amount of money should be paid because without the United States it has nothing, at least to do with 30%.
So I told you. I think we will have, perhaps, an agreement, a great advantage, a great advantage. But it's not a great resource in the United States unless it has U.S. approval.
So it will close on September 15th, unless Microsoft or someone else is able to buy it, and come up with an agreement, an appropriate agreement, so the Treasury - really the Treasury, I suppose you would say, of the United States States, it gets a lot of money. Much money.
