President Donald Trump says he is “very close” to making a deal for the sale of TikTok, which has to be sold by the weekend or will be banned in the US due to its Chinese ownership. The platform ‘went dark’ when the law took effect for one day in January in the US until Trump intervened to hold off the ban until April 5. Some bipartisan law went through Congress last year, which mandates that TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, sells it.
The US government said that there is a national security risk because authorities of Beijing might have access to the massive pile of data collected from users, which Beijing denies.
Potential New Buyers Of TikTok
Speaking about it on Air Force One Thursday, he said, “There are multiple investors very close to actually signing a deal”.
He also suggested that a deal could be made whereby China would allow the “blessing of a sale” while the US would provide tax relief on Chinese imports.
Other names frequently mentioned include some emerging high-profile potential buyers.
According to the BBC’s US partner CBS, Amazon has made a last minute offer to the White House to purchase TikTok. Amazon would not comment.
Trump has said he would be willing to sell the company to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, as well as Elon Musk, but Musk said he had no intentions of buying.
He is reportedly joined by billionaire Frank McCourt in looking to acquire it, alongside Kevin O’Leary, a Canadian businessman and celebrity investor on Shark Tank, the US version of Dragons’ Den.
Said Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, in a post on X last month “I joined Mr. McCourt in his bid.”
The largest of all YouTubers in the world, Jimmy Donaldson-APA MrBeast- has also announced his intention to acquire TikTok as part of a group of investors.
British founder Tim Stokely of OnlyFans, too, has expressed an interest in buying TikTok under his new relaunch company, Zoop.
Computing giant Microsoft, private equity titan Blackstone, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and search engine Perplexity AI are reportedly in line for stakes.
The White House is said to be exploring a possibility where ByteDance will own TikTok’s algorithm but rent it to a new entity running the video sharing app within the confines of the US, but nothing is certain for the future of the chinese app.
If there is no deal, TikTok might be banned from US app stores and will be unavailable to US citizens.
