The clock is ticking for TikTok, with the popular video app facing a ban on Saturday unless its parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, strikes a last-minute deal to remain active in the U.S. By midday Friday, no deal has materialized.
It has been a long and winding road to this point. TikTok was initially set to be banned from the U.S. on Jan. 19, after President Joe Biden signed a law last year requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok’s American operation; TikTok has boasted it has 170 million U.S. users. The chief concern lawmakers had was that TikTok could act as a stealth spyware app for China’s communist government, as ByteDance is required by Chinese law to hand over any user data the government asks for.
President Trump, on his first day back in the White House in January, signed a 75-day extension that gave ByteDance more time to reach a deal; the president had said he would like to “save” TikTok, in part, because it helped him reach younger voters during the 2024 election. The belief Trump would spearhead a deal had his fans and TikTok creators partying late into the night on the eve of his inauguration.
In March, President Trump said the U.S. government was talking to four bidders about buying TikTok, without naming specific companies or investors. The Information reported on March 13 that Oracle had taken the lead in acquiring TikTok’s U.S. operation. And complicating matters has been the Chinese government’s adamant stance it will not approve any TikTok sale.
More potential buyers have come forward this week, including Amazon, which made a late bid to acquire the entire app, not just TikTok’s U.S. operation. It is unclear how much Amazon bid. A fair price just to acquire TikTok’s American wing, Wedbush Securities Managing Director Dan Ives told TheWrap, would be a record-setting $300 billion.
President Trump has said he would “like the United States to have a 50% ownership position” in any TikTok deal, saying it can be a “joint venture.” Whether that means the U.S. government will have a slice of TikTok, or just an American business, remains to be seen. The president on Thursday suggested China’s government could get a break on his new tariff plan if it approves a TikTok deal.
And despite the security concerns, only 32% of Americans have said they are in favor of a ban, according to a Pew Research survey last fall. Many users have said they simply do not care whether the Chinese government can access their phones, with one TikTok creator telling TheWrap “You can spy on me, I don’t care.”
Heading into Friday, TikTok had been operating like it will be around for a while in the States, with the company hiring former Warner Bros. Discovery comms boss Nathaniel Brown as its Global Head of Corporate Communication last week. And TikTok has been running ads on Fox News and YouTube, among other spots, highlighting small business owners who use the app to reach customers. The focus now is on whether a deadline-eve deal is reached to keep those users on TikTok.
