
What you need to know
- In August 2020, Microsoft had a strange, short-lived opportunity to buy TikTok, after parent company ByteDance was coerced into selling its U.S. operations by the Trump administration.
- Microsoft's deal to buy TikTok quite quickly fell through. Oracle was chosen instead, however that never happened either.
- Once Joe Biden took over as President, calls for ByteDance to divest TikTok waned. Until now.
- Now, "more than a dozen" U.S. lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, have produced a bill that would once again force ByteDance to force divestiture of TikTok to a U.S. tech company, over "national security concerns."