How to Write (and Read) Headlines in the Trump 2.0 Era, Microsoft-TikTok Edition

A Monday report from Reuters, syndicated at The Guardian, “Microsoft Is in Talks to Acquire TikTok, Trump Claims”:

Donald Trump has suggested that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a bidding war over the app. When asked if Microsoft was in talks to buy the app, the US president said “I would say yes”, adding “A lot of interest in TikTok. There’s great interest in TikTok.”

Microsoft, TikTok and ByteDance did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for a comment outside regular business hours, after the US president’s comments to reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday.

The reported talks mark the second time that Microsoft has been in the frame to acquire TikTok. During his first term, Trump ordered TikTok to separate its US version from ByteDance citing national security concerns. Microsoft emerged as a top bidder in 2020, but the talks soon collapsed, and Trump’s divestment push ended a few months later when he left office.

Is it really true that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok from ByteDance? Or did Donald Trump just bullshit his “I would say yes”? This report, based on nothing more than an off-the-cuff verbal answer from Trump Monday, has had absolutely zero follow-up since. Microsoft reported its quarterly earnings yesterday and there was not a word about a TikTok acquisition. And in the years since 2020, Microsoft has invested a staggering amount of capital into data centers for AI and cloud computing — their $22 billion spend last quarter and estimated $80 billion spend for the upcoming year dominated news coverage and analysis of their results yesterday. They also acquired Activision Blizzard for about $70 billion. I’m not saying Microsoft couldn’t afford to acquire TikTok — they could, I’m sure — but it’d raise a genuine question about focus. But there’s nothing in the coverage of yesterday’s results or the analyst call they held that suggests they’re in the hunt for TikTok.

Whether you love Trump or hate him (or, bizarrely, somehow fall in-between — please see me after class if you’re of that mind) we all know he’s a bullshitter. He makes shit up. Either (a) there are secret talks between Microsoft and ByteDance, and Trump is privy to those talks, and he decided to blab about them, but only when asked; or (b) he just said “I would say yes” when asked because he thought it would sound good and reinforce his self image as the world’s most juiced-in dealmaker. I know which seems more likely.

And even if it’s not bullshit, if all a news report has to go on is Donald Trump saying “I would say yes”, that has to be filed under “Maybe this is true” at best. So the headline, at its most generous, should put that first: “Trump Claims Microsoft Is in Talks to Acquire TikTok”, not “Microsoft Is in Talks to Acquire TikTok, Trump Claims”.

Here’s the kicker: Reuters’s original headline, on reuters.com, actually got this right: “Trump Says Microsoft Is in Talks to Acquire TikTok”. It was someone at The Guardian who turned up the clickbait dial a tad on this.

★ Thursday, 30 January 2025