Twitter has held preliminary talks with the Chinese social network TikTok to take over its business in the United States, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper, which quotes people familiar with the matter, notes that for now, it is not clear if Twitter will try to go ahead with a possible acquisition, in which it would go behind Microsoft, which has been negotiating with ByteDance, the developer of TikTok for weeks.

The future of the popular application is in the air in the United States, after this week the president, Donald Trump, signed an executive order prohibiting any transaction or business with ByteDance from 45 days.

"The United States must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security," Trump said in the text of the executive order, which would eliminate the application in the United States if it does not change ownership.

The Trump administration maintains that TikTok poses a threat to US national security and is seeking to force its sale to a US company such as Microsoft, which has shown interest in the popular social network.

"Data collection (from TikTok) threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party to access the personal and private information of Americans, potentially allowing China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, create personal information files for blackmail and corporate espionage, "the order says.

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Trump assured that TikTok creates "real risks" for the US, so he has banned any business with its parent company, a move that may force ByteDance to sell its social network in the next 45 days.

This period goes a little beyond the date of September 15 that Trump marked TikTok this week to sell his business or leave the United States, where according to the Government it has more than 175 million downloads.

The platform responded this Friday that it does not rule out taking legal action against the veto and criticized that Trump's order is based on fears that the application "could" be used for disinformation and collection campaigns, without having evidence of it.

“For nearly a year, we have tried to work in good faith with the United States government to provide a constructive solution to the concerns expressed. Instead, we find that the Administration did not pay attention to the facts, dictated the terms of an agreement without going through standard legal processes, and tried to insert itself in the negotiations between private companies, "said TikTok.

Although the valuation of TikTok's US operations is not entirely clear, analysts estimate it at tens of billions of dollars, so it is believed that Twitter - with a market capitalization of about US $ 29 billion - would need support from investors. to carry out the merger.