TikTok is one of the world’s most popular programs for sharing short video clips, with users able to select from a variety of genres. But there arises a tussle about who bought TikTok?
TikTok is used by more than a billion people around the world, but who actually owns it and how much is it worth exactly?
What is TikTok’s owner’s name?
TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which was founded by the Chinese billionaire entrepreneur Zhang Yiming. This year, Time Magazine dubbed the 38-year-old “the world’s top entrepreneur” as one of the most influential persons in the world. Having graduated from Nankai University with a degree in software engineering, he moved on to work for a number of computer companies before joining Microsoft.
In 2012, he founded his own online innovation business, ByteDance, where he developed TikTok and other applications and news aggregation services. Lip-syncing to a song, comedy routine or movie scene can be done for as low as 60 cents.
Who bought TikTok and merged with musical.ly?
Who bought TikTok was not confirmed but it was available for Apple and Android devices in 2017 in most countries outside of China. Only in 2018 did it join up with another Chinese social media service called Musical.ly to make it available to users throughout the world. In 2014, Musical.ly was launched as a website for making and sharing short lip-sync videos.
More than 200 million people were using Musical.ly by the end of May 2017. On November 9th, 2017, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly for an estimated $1 billion. Until August 2, 2018, TikTok was a stand-alone app. One of Musical.ly’s parent companies has changed its name as well.
Oracle’s TikTok bidding war victory was due to what factors?
Who bought TikTok is still a mystery but TikTok’s parent firm Oracle has bought the popular meme-making, video-sharing app following a threat from the US authorities to shut it down unless it was sold to a US-based corporation.
The software company declined Microsoft’s offer to take over the app’s U.S. operations. Oracle’s founder Larry Ellison, a Trump supporter, is widely believed to have played a role in the company’s meteoric rise. To take effect, the agreement must be approved by the White House.
Zhang Yiming, a Chinese internet entrepreneur, invented TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based software company ByteDance. China and the United States are growing trade hostilities, and who bought TikTok has fallen foul of this. Social media has been labeled a security risk by the Trump administration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others claim that it is being used to steal user data and harm the US. As a result of similar security concerns, India decided to prohibit TikTok in early 2018.
Though TikTok’s “trusted tech partner” in the US will be Oracle, the Wall Street Journal reports that the acquisition won’t be an outright sale.
According to ByteDance, who bought TikTok and that TikTok’s US business will not be sold to Microsoft. We are certain that our approach would have been fantastic for TikTok’s users while preserving national security objectives,” Microsoft said Sunday night in a statement. To ensure the highest levels of security, privacy, and online safety, as well as countering disinformation, this service would have needed significant changes, and we made these principles clear in our August statement. Watching the service grow in these places is exciting for us.”
Walmart and Microsoft came up with a proposition last month that surprised the financial community. Microsoft was widely expected to win the competition based on its merits. With a strong video game market and powerful communication platforms like LinkedIn and Skype, it can connect with TikTok’s key adolescent audience, despite its software background.”
