微软确认正与字节跳动谈判收购抖音的美国版

作者：乔桥  来源：Washington Post

《美中关系快报》第62期

 美国《华盛顿邮报》报道说，在其总裁与特朗普总统通话之后，微软公司确认它正与字节跳动谈判收购其美国版本。报道主要内容如下：
     一、周五，在空军一号上，特朗普说他将很快做出在美国禁止TikTok（抖音）的决定。

     二、白宫考虑采用两种办法禁止抖音在美国运行。其一，通过美国境外投资审查委员会（CFIUS）审查2017年跳动字节收购美国Musical.ly的程序要求TikTok出售给美国公司；其二，通过特朗普2019年签署的一个行政命令，禁止美国公司与对美国国家安全构成威胁的中国公司有任何关系，也不允许美国人受雇于该公司。
     三、上周，美国四大互联网公司到国会就垄断问题听证，它们分别是谷歌、脸书、亚马逊和苹果公司。微软目前似乎没有垄断之嫌，也没有经营社交媒体，这样它收购TikTok更容易获得批准。
     四、微软目前的市值是15500亿美元，有足够的现金收购TikTok。微软说，它还会寻找其他收购伙伴。
     五、如果谈判成功，微软还将同时收购TikTok在加拿大、澳大利亚和新西兰的运行。
     六、白宫贸易与制造委员会主任纳瓦罗今天对媒体说，TikTok对美国国家安全构成了威胁。他说，all personal information is “potentially going right back to the Chinese communist party, the Chinese military and the Chinese government.” “They can use these social media apps to steal your personal information, your business information and also Judge, they use these social media apps to track you and surveil you and monitor your movements.” 他还说微软不是一家爱国公司。
     七、这是继中兴和华为之后美国又一次奇袭一家中国高科技公司。互联网咨询公司Sensor Tower说，抖音app在全球被下载了20亿次。据报道，抖音目前在全球有10亿用户，4亿在中国，2亿在印度，一亿在美国，其他在世界各地。
      八、直到美国时间周六早上，TikTok美国公司高管还放话说，这个为美国用户喜闻乐见的app哪儿都不会去，并动员其明星为TikTok留在美国而斗争。
      九、白宫把微软收购TikTok谈判完成的期限定在9月15日。

（图片说明：Addison Rae是美国抖音上拥有粉丝最多的明星（5600万），她听说特朗普总统要关闭TikTok后在Twitter抱怨说，“Bitter（苦不堪言）“。）
《美中关系快报》快评：

     1、美国处理抖音的方式似乎与中国处理美国的社交媒体公司不一样，不是对其设立防火墙，而是通过其他手段。这些手段被法庭否决的可能性更小。美国的方式与印度直接禁止中国的几十种app也不一样。2、中美关系已经发展到只有想不到的，没有做不到的地步。3、作为资本主义制度的大本营和天天对中国的计划经济说三道四的美国以国家安全为名用行政命令干预市场运作在最近几年已经成了家常便饭。4、有专家对本站说，在目前中美关系没有任何互信的大环境下，特别是在中国的《情报法》和港版《国安法》实施的情况下，美国是不太可能信任这些有能力和意愿收集美国用户数据的中国高科技公司的。5、也有专家对本站说，TikTok在目前情况下出售，肯定不会是市价，只能是议价。换句话说，字节跳动只能是贱卖自己在美国和其他三个国家（五眼联盟中的四个）的财产了。6、特朗普总统跟纳瓦罗那样的顾问或许还是有区别，对前者，deal更重要；对后者，“整死你”才是目的。
Washington Post：Microsoft confirms it is in talks to buy TikTok after CEO talks to Trump      
     Rachel Lerman， August 2, 2020
     Microsoft said Sunday it will continue talks to buy short-form video app TikTok after its chief executive spoke with President Trump, following a weekend of uncertainty clouding the future of the Chinese-owned app.

Microsoft said in a blog post that chief executive Satya Nadella and Trump had spoken and that the company is committed to addressing Trump’s concerns about the social media platform. Trump previously indicated he was not in favor of a deal and said that he planned to ban TikTok in the United States.

The president had also been weighing options over the past few days to force Beijing-based parent company ByteDance to divest in TikTok in the United States because of national security concerns, according to people familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Microsoft confirmed it will “move quickly” on discussions with ByteDance and said it has given the U.S. government notice of a possible acquisition of the U.S. assets of TikTok.

Trump says he plans to bar TikTok from operating in the U.S.

This the first time Microsoft has confirmed that the company is in talks for Microsoft to purchase TikTok operations in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

“This new structure would build on the experience TikTok users currently love, while adding world-class security, privacy, and digital safety protections,” the tech giant said in its post.

TikTok and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump says he will ban TikTok app in the U.S.

President Trump said late July 31 that he would ban TikTok in the United States, pushing the Chinese owner to sell the app. (Reuters)

If it goes through, the acquisition could dramatically shift the Big Tech landscape, adding a legacy giant into the scramble for social media users’ attention. Microsoft, currently valued at $1.55 trillion, is the third-most valuable company in the world and is one of the only ones positioned to take on such a purchase. Microsoft was conspicuously absent from a landmark antitrust hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon chief executives testified on their companies’ power.

Buying TikTok would put Microsoft in a powerful position to compete with Facebook and Google’s YouTube, which operate dominant social media sites. Microsoft has focused mainly on enterprise software for the past decade, though it does own professional networking site LinkedIn.

Its absence from the social media market could also make it more likely regulators will approve Microsoft buying TikTok.

Trump’s vow to ban TikTok reflects GOP’s anti-China posture ahead of elections

If Microsoft buys TikTok, it would also solve an ongoing issue for Republicans and Trump, who has attacked TikTok as a prominent target in his crackdown against China amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The continuing discussions, which Microsoft said it expected to conclude by Sept. 15, hinged largely on buy-in from the Trump administration.

Trump told reporters Friday night that he planned to ban the app in the United States, and had earlier indicated he would do so in retaliation for what he saw as China’s role in spreading the coronavirus.

“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.

But Saturday morning, TikTok officials were still waging a public campaign to garner favor with officials and fans, and assured users in a TikTok video that the platform was “here for the long run.” Passionate TikTok users took to the app all weekend to express their dismay and encourage their followers to find them on other social media sites.

Late last week, Trump was considering two main options to change the ownership of TikTok. One was through a process led by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which began investigating an acquisition by ByteDance of Musical.ly in 2017. The president considered signing an order to divest the company on Friday, according to the people familiar with the talks.

Trump also considered using a 2019 executive order to designate TikTok a national security threat and bar American companies and workers from doing business with it, the people said Friday.

How the Trump administration’s comments on China evolved

From Mar-a-Lago to Yorba Linda, the Trump administration’s comments about China went from glowing to critical. (Video: Jason Aldag/Photo: Photo illustration by William Neff/The Washington Post)

Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have previously been critical of TikTok’s Chinese ownership, saying it’s a threat to national security and threatening to ban it. That prompted ByteDance to start to explore a sale, although the company would prefer to retain TikTok if possible, another person familiar with the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, previously told The Washington Post.

Microsoft said it informed the CFIUS of its TikTok talks. The company also said it might bring in other American investors to take a minority stake in TikTok as part of the deal.

The biggest takeaways from the big-tech antitrust hearing

Microsoft said in its blog that it would “ensure that all private data of TikTok’s American users is transferred to and remains in the United States.” Ensuring American data privacy has been a main crux of lawmaker’s arguments against Chinese ownership of TikTok.

TikTok has continually insisted that it already keeps U.S. user data stored in the country and that it does not hand over data to the Chinese government.

TikTok, which has been downloaded more than 2 billion times according to research firm Sensor Tower, lets users make short videos that show them dancing, cooking, pulling pranks or taking political stances. It is especially popular with teenage users, who have used the platform to take aim at Trump.

That included earlier this summer, when teens encouraged each other to reserve tickets to Trump’s June rally in Tulsa, hoping to inflate the expected number of attendees even though they never planned to show up. The Trump campaign said that it had no impact on the event.

来源时间：2020/8/3   发布时间：2020/8/3

旧文章ID：22532