Donald Trump says he has found a “group of very wealthy people” who are ready to buy TikTok, whose identities he said he would reveal in “about two weeks”.
The US President, speaking in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, said the deal he is developing would probably need China’s approval to move forward, and predicted Chinese President Xi Jinping “will probably do it”.
The White House earlier this month extended the deadline to 17 September for China-based ByteDance to divest its US assets of the video-sharing app, despite a law that mandated a sale or shutdown without significant progress.
A deal had been in the works this spring that would have spun off TikTok’s US operations into a new US-based firm, majority-owned and operated by US investors. But the deal fell apart after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump’s announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese goods.
It is not clear if the deal Trump teased involved the same people as the previously collapsed agreement three months ago.
“We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way,” Trump said. “I think I’ll need probably China’s approval. I think President Xi will probably do it.”
Finding a buyer for TikTok in the US is part of a deal to avert a ban of the app after US lawmakers raised concerns about the app’s relationship with the Chinese Government and Beijing’s influence over the company.
The US Congress passed a law forcing TikTok to stop operating by 19 January, unless parent company ByteDance had completed divesting the app’s US assets or demonstrated significant progress toward a sale.
TikTok challenged the constitutionality of the law, but lost its appeal to the US Supreme Court.
China-based ByteDance to divest its US assets of TikTok under US law (Photo: Cheng Xin/Getty)Trump, who credits the app with boosting his support among young voters in last November’s presidential election, has extended the deadline three times.
He has repeatedly delayed its enforcement through executive actions, moves that have drawn criticism for overruling congressional lawmakers.
The most recent extension in April was for a reported 50 per cent sale of the app to American buyers.
During his first term Trump took issue with ByteDance repeatedly and issued executive orders in 2020 that required ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US assets or face being banned in the country. The orders were blocked by federal courts.
What is TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese Government?
Like with most major companies in China, the ruling Communist Party has set up a party branch at ByteDance, which has led to concerns about Beijing’s influence over the company.
US officials criticised TikTok’s security and privacy, suggesting user data might be shared with Beijing. TikTok disputes this and insists it has never shared, or received a request to share, US user data with the Chinese Government.
More than 170 million Americans have TikTok accounts, it is estimated.
Scrutiny over ByteDance expanded further after the government took a 1 per cent stake in its local subsidiary Beijing ByteDance Technology in 2019. The share acquisition awarded the Chinese Government a board seat at the subsidiary.
To try to alleviate concerns, TikTok started to host its American user data in the US firm Oracle’s cloud infrastructure from 2020, but US lawmakers have still insisted on the part sale.
The deal for the sale of TikTok falls under Vice President JD Vance’s purview after he was assigned to handle finding the new buyers.
Vance’s office and TikTok were approached for comment.
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