The TikTok application is operated by the Chinese company ByteDance. President Donald Trump gave the company until September 15 to agree to sell TikTok’s US activities to the United States, or it would ban the activities. TikTok has about one hundred million users in the United States.
Trump justifies his position by saying that Chinese ownership of the company poses a risk to national security, because the Chinese government can thus obtain information about American citizens.
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The Wall Street Journal also reported on Twitter’s interest in TikTok’s activities. However, Twitter is much smaller than Microsoft and could have difficulty financing the transaction. The market value of Twitter is around $ 29 billion, while the market value of Microsoft exceeds $ 1.6 trillion.
According to sources, Twitter would have to increase its capital to fund the agreement. “It will be difficult for Twitter to raise enough funds,” said University of Michigan professor Erik Gordon. “It does not have enough space for loans,” he added. In addition, he said, Twitter shareholders might prefer the company’s management to focus on its own activities.
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