Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Describes Unsuccessful TikTok Deal As 'Strangest Thing'

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made a big statement after failing to acquire TikTok. He said it's the strangest deal he has ever worked on.

Microsoft Corporation Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella | AFP

New Delhi: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made a big statement after failing to acquire the Chinese app TikTok. He said that it is was the "strangest thing he has ever worked on". During a Code Conference in California, Nadella shared his experience and said "first of all, TikTok came to us. We didn't go to TikTok."

In August of 2020, Microsoft planned to acquire a portion of ByteDance's TikTok business in the US in a complicated deal. But things went haywire as the Chinese owner of TikTok chose Oracle to be its US operations partner.

As Microsoft was in talks with ByteDance the then-President Donald Trump was threatening to ban TikTok in the US due to privacy and security concerns. 

“President Trump, I think had sort of a particular point of view on what he was trying to get done there, and then just dropped off,” Nadella said.

“I mean, it was interesting. There was a period of time when I felt that the US government had some particular set of requirements, and then they just disappeared,” he said.

Nadella said that he was looking forward to bringing Microsoft's security, child safety, and cloud expertise to ByteDance's TikTok AI-driven tech.

He said TikTok would have been an "interesting partner" because of Microsoft's work with “social media, in particular, what we’re doing in content moderation and child safety.