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The former CEO and co-founder of technology giant Microsoft has been waiting for pressure from the Trump administration for a US company to buy Chinese-owned video shares from social media app Tik Tok.
Microsoft’s proposal to buy the popular video sharing app TikTok is a “poisoned cup”, according to company co-founder Bill Gates in an interview with WIRED published on Friday.
Gates, who currently works as a technology consultant for Microsoft after stepping down as CEO in 2014, warned that “growing up in the social media industry is not an easy game,” but added that making the sector more competitive is “probably a good thing”.
“I mean, this may sound self-serving, but I think the game’s competitor is probably a good thing. But if Trump is the only competitor killed, it’s pretty bizarre,” he said.
The billionaire described the order given by US President Donald Trump to TikTok in Chinese ownership to sell the app to a US company as “foreign”, especially the demand to give a cut of every deal to the federal government.
“I agree that the principle behind it is once again strange. The cut thing, that’s doubly strange. However, Microsoft will have to deal with it all,” Gates added.
The Trump administration said in July that it was looking to potentially ban the TikTok app. The same month, the New York Times reported that Microsoft was involved in talks over the purchase of TikTok.
Microsoft has officially confirmed its plans to acquire Tiktok operations in Australia, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, with discussions to be completed by September 15.
President Trump on Thursday issued an executive order that will see TikTok’s member company ByteDance ban “any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” beginning 45 days after signing of the document.
The president claimed that the app “could give the Chinese Communist Party access to personal and proprietary information of Americans”.
Although China has deliberately refused to allow Chinese software to be used abroad for spies, the controversy over TikTok comes as part of a broader imposition of restrictions on Chinese technology companies.
On December 1, 2018, Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada at a request for extradition from Washington claiming that the Chinese tech giant had broken US sanctions by selling products to Iran.
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