Trump pushing Microsoft to buy TikTok was 'strangest thing I've ever worked on,' says Satya Nadella

It's difficult to remember now, but in August 2020 there was a deeply surreal episode wherein [Microsoft proposed acquiring some portion of TikTok](//www.theverge.com/2020/8/2/21352004/microsoft-tiktok-acquisition-trump-bytedance) in a [complicated deal](//www.theverge.com/2020/8/4/21354255/microsoft-tiktok-trump-ban-bytedance-china-us-canada) as the Trump administration was threatening to come down hard on the platform. Ultimately, [TikTok turned Microsoft down](//www.theverge.com/2020/9/13/21360130/microsoft-tiktok-acquisition-bid-rejection-bytedance) just a day before [Oracle came in with an entirely different kind of deal](//www.theverge.com/2020/9/14/21436035/tiktok-oracle-deal-bytedance-president-trump-safety) and the whole thing dissipated. Speaking today at [the Code Conference](//voxmediaevents.com/code2021) , Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the whole ordeal was the "strangest thing I've ever sort of worked on." In terms of the value of such a deal for Microsoft,…