In the press conference, Google CEO Sundar Pichai pointed out that the company had no plans to buy TikTok, once and for all blasting all the rumors about the alleged deal. However, this decision hardly came as a surprise for market participants. Many large companies are now avoiding China's entertaining giant as Donald Trump is lashing out at anyone who is ready to cooperate with it. Like many other firms, Google has decided to stay away from any problems.
Moreover, Pichai noted that neither Google nor any other division of Google parent Alphabet Inc is going to buy China's media platform, thus confirming the fact that this question was previously on the agenda. However, in light of recent events, the company has decided to change its plans. Sundar Pichai added "TikTok is one of the tech businesses flourishing during the pandemic that is not facing antitrust scrutiny, unlike Google." It was just paying for Google cloud services.
Donald Trump is sure that TikTok is a real threat to national security since the app collects sensitive data of US citizens for China's authorities. The TikTok owner sued the presidential administration in response, saying that the US authorities ignored the colossal effort that was taken by TikTok after the US put forward its claims. "We do not take suing the government lightly; however, we feel we have no choice but to take action to protect our rights, and the rights of our community and employees. More than 1,500 employees across the US pour their hearts into building this platform every day," the company pointed out in its suit.
