Disturbing news that Trump may wreck Microsoft negotiations to buy TikTok.

There's zero strategic rationale for a Presidential directive by fiat to ban TikTok when there is a viable option for a U.S. company to acquire them. https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1289655137384804353

The best outcome for TikTok has always been that ByteDance sells them to a U.S. firm. There's nothing wrong with the content or platform. The problem with TikTok has always been ownership by a Chinese company beholden to the CCP. Selling TikTok to a U.S. firm is an ideal solution

The fundamental question for the U.S. is whether we want to compete with China for control over technological leadership or opt out.

Banning TikTok is opting out and ceding the space to China.

Hard not to see political motivations behind Trump's purported opposition to the deal ... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html

But it's a bad choice. Much better to be able to say, "we wrestled control of a major social media platform from the CCP" than "we just quit and gave up".