Microsoft's History of Billion-Dollar Acquisitions

About a month ago, Microsoft has shown interest in acquiring TikTok’s U.S. operations. The company expects that the discussions with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance would be completed before September 15.

A possible deal would likely include TikTok’s operations in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and prevent a possible shutdown of the immensely popular social media app over national security concerns. The app’s meteoric rise over the past two years has been shrouded in controversy over data security and its alleged ties to the Chinese government.

Reportedly valued between $30 and $50 billion, TikTok could become Microsoft’s biggest acquisition to date. The software giant is no stranger to billion-dollar acquisitions, however, as the following chart shows. Over the past two decades, the company has made acquisitions in various fields ranging from hardware (Nokia) to video games (Minecraft-maker Mojang) and social media (LinkedIn).