Twitter in Talks with TikTok Over Plans to Acquire the US Operations of the Chinese-Owned App

Twitter is holding preliminary talks with embattled social network TikTok about the possibility of buying the US operations of the popular Chinese-owned Video app.

US President Donald Trump had on Thursday issued an executive order that would ban TikTok in the US. The ban doesn’t kick in till September, which leaves it open for a sale to a US-based company.

Several companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook have been touted as potential buyers and Microsoft has also come out to acknowledge it is in contention for a takeover.

Trump and others have flagged TikTok as a national security threat with allegations that it harvests US users’ data its Bottom of Formowner, ByteDance, is beholden to China’s communist government. ByteDance has denied that the app presents any such threat.

According to the Wall Street Journal, it is not clear if Twitter will pursue a deal. Microsoft is farther along in negotiations, the news outlet said, and being smaller, Twitter would have a tougher time raising enough money to buy the app.

A deal between Microsoft and TikTok could be worth between  $10 billion and $30 billion, depending on how much of TikTok the tech giant agreed to acquire, CNBC has reported. Twitter’s market capitalization is approximately $29 billion and Microsoft’s is over $1.6 trillion, the Journal noted.

The Journal also reckons that a deal with the smaller Twitter could be of an advantage because it wouldn’t be subject to the same level of antitrust scrutiny.

TikTok won’t be Twitter’s first attempt into short videos. The company in 2012 had bought startup Vine for $30 million, only to shut down Vine in 2016.

Both Twitter and TikTok declined to comment on the Journal report.