With TikTok mired in uncertainty, Facebook pounces with Instagram Reels

TikTok is going to get acquired or die trying.

The hit video app appears headed for a shotgun wedding after President Donald Trump has decided to force its owner, the Chinese tech conglomerate ByteDance, to sell TikTok to an American acquirer or be barred from operating in the country. On Monday, the president — acting as a combination of investment banker, regulator, and backroom Mafioso — said he would approve a bid by Microsoft for TikTok’s US operations, provided that both parties meet his as-yet-unspecified demands and hit a Sept. 15 deadline.

There are a million questions still swirling around a possible TikTok-Microsoft deal. But the most glaring question mark is that nobody I’ve talked to has figured out exactly what “buying TikTok” will mean,