Who may purchase TikTok as ban deadline looms? Amazon joins bidders

President Donald Trump says he’s “very shut” to brokering a deal to discover a purchaser for TikTok, which faces a US ban if its Chinese language proprietor doesn’t promote the app by the weekend.

A bipartisan regulation handed by Congress final yr mandates TikTok’s Chinese language mother or father firm, ByteDance, promote the app.

The platform ‘went darkish’ for a day in January within the US after the regulation took impact, till Trump intervened and delayed the ban till 5 April.

The US authorities has stated TikTok poses a menace to nationwide safety as a result of Chinese language authorities may entry its huge trove of consumer information, which Beijing denies.

Talking on Air Power One on Thursday, Trump stated “a number of buyers” had been closing in on a deal.

He additionally prompt the US might provide a deal the place China agrees to approve a TikTok sale in trade for reduction from US tariffs on Chinese language imports.

A number of potential patrons have cropped up in stories.

Amazon has put in a last-minute provide to the White Home to amass TikTok, based on the BBC’s US associate CBS. Amazon declined to remark.

Trump has stated he could be open to promoting TikTok to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, in addition to Elon Musk, though the latter stated he had no intention of shopping for.

Different potential patrons embody billionaire Frank McCourt, along with Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary – a star investor on Shark Tank, the US model of Dragons’ Den.

Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit, stated in a put up on X final month that he had joined Mr McCourt’s bid.

The largest YouTuber on the earth Jimmy Donaldson – AKA MrBeast – has additionally stated he is trying to purchase TikTok as a part of a bunch of buyers.

Tim Stokely, the British founding father of OnlyFans, has additionally to provided to purchase TikTok beneath his lately re-launched firm, Zoop.

Computing large Microsoft, non-public fairness large Blackstone, enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz and search engine Perplexity AI are additionally reportedly within the operating for a stake.

The White Home has reportedly thought-about an possibility whereby ByteDance would maintain possession of TikTok’s algorithm, however lease it to a brand new entity working the video-sharing app inside the US.

If no deal is reached by 5 April, the app might as soon as once more face a US ban and be pulled from app shops.

Trump signed an government order in January, which solely delayed TikTok’s ban by 75 days.

His order didn’t overturn the ban on the app handed into regulation by Congress and upheld by the US Supreme Courtroom.

Trump might permit the regulation to face, however ask the Division of Justice to proceed to disregard it.

The federal government would successfully be telling Apple and Google they won’t be punished for permitting individuals to obtain TikTok on to their gadgets.

TikTok returned to Google’s Play Retailer and Apple’s App Retailer in February, after the businesses had been reportedly advised they might not face penalties for internet hosting it.

Trump has additionally stated he would “in all probability” prolong the deadline, if wanted.

TikTok says it has 170 million US customers who spent – on common – 51 minutes per day on the app in 2024.

Specialists say rivals corresponding to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts may benefit if Trump’s efforts to dealer a sale of TikTok do not succeed.

“Chief advertising and marketing officers who we have spoken with confirmed that they may divert their media {dollars} to Meta and Google if they will not promote on TikTok,” stated Kelsey Chickering, an analyst at market analysis firm Forrester.

Different potential winners embody Amazon’s Twitch, which made its identify by internet hosting livestreams – a preferred characteristic on TikTok. Twitch is well-known notably to avid gamers, although its different content material is increasing, too.

Different Chinese language-owned platforms, corresponding to Xiaohongshu – often known as RedNote amongst its US customers – have additionally seen speedy development within the US and the UK.

Extra reporting by Liv McMahon & Imran Rahman-Jones