Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Caudick said in an interview with GritPodcast that he and Microsoft originally wanted to acquire TikTok before it was acquired by Microsoft. "I know Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, very well, and he's a great guy... So I called him and I said, 'Would you rather have Microsoft or me?' and he said, 'I'd probably rather have you.'"
However, Caudick also realized that Activision Blizzard did not have the financial resources to compete with Microsoft, so he came up with an idea - he and Microsoft shared the ownership of TikTok. While he was discussing the matter with Microsoft boss Satya Nadella, the other party proposed the idea of acquiring Activision Blizzard.
"So I called Nadella and I said 'I don't want to make a bid with you, it would be great if we were partners on this, I think we're more of a consumer company than you are, I think I understand social media better than you do. We should do this together'."
"Nadella said 'Look, we're way ahead of you, I don't even know if this deal is going to get done, I don't need a partner on this deal. But if it doesn't get done, we should sit down and talk about our acquisition of Activision.'"
Everyone knows the next story: Microsoft did not acquire TikTok, but successfully acquired Activision Blizzard.