(Seattle)

For the last week, Microsoft has been in a delicate dance to try to acquire the hugely popular social media app TikTok. President Trump has been adamant that it needs to be bought by US interests or he may ban the app. Last week, Microsoft said it was trying to acquire the company, but then swiftly abandoned the efforts because Trump said he would block the deal. Now, Microsoft says that Satya Nadella and Trump have spoken and gotten on the same page and that the deal is back on. Wedbush thinks the deal could be transformational for Microsoft as it would put them in direct competition with Facebook, Alphabet etc, and give them a huge social media prize while those competitors remain mired in major regulatory scrutiny.

FINSUM: TikTok already has 100 million users in the US. We think if this goes through it could end up being a major boost to Microsoft. Perhaps not unlike Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram.