The US has put a number of Chinese-owned companies under intense scrutiny over the last few months. Most recently, President Trump made it very clear that the US is looking at banning the popular video-sharing app, Tiktok, over user-privacy concerns.
Now, one of the world’s largest online retailers, Alibaba, could be next in line.
“Alibaba hasn’t yet been threatened with the same kinds of sanctions that US President Donald Trump has proposed or levied against other Chinese tech firms,” reports CNN. This could be because the eCommerce company has seen limited success outside of Asia – however, “the fact that it is a national tech champion in China may be reason enough for Washington to target it”.
Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State has made it clear that “Washington wantsto protect Americans’ most sensitive personal information and our businesses’ most valuable intellectual property — including COVID vaccine research — from being accessed on cloud-based systems run by companies such as Alibaba”.
Microsoft CEO in Talks to Acquire TikTok
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Trump are in talks over the “purchase of TikTok” – this acquisition would allow Microsoft to own and operate the TikTok service in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
In a blog post, the tech company says that “Microsoft will move quickly to pursue discussions with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, in a matter of weeks, and in any event completing these discussions no later than September 15, 2020. During this process, Microsoft looks forward to continuing dialogue with the United States Government, including with the President.”
