Who's Trying To Buy Tiktok?

President Donald Trump has for a 2nd clip extended nan deadline that would person required TikTok to beryllium sold aliases look a prohibition successful nan US.

A bipartisan rule passed by Congress past twelvemonth mandates TikTok's Chinese genitor company, ByteDance, waste nan app.

The level 'went dark' for a time successful January successful nan US aft nan rule took effect, until Trump intervened and delayed nan prohibition until 5 April. He has now granted a different 75-day hold until June agent a deal.

The US authorities has said TikTok poses a threat to nationalist information because Chinese authorities mightiness entree its immense trove of personification data, which Beijing denies.

Speaking connected Air Force One connected Thursday, Trump said "multiple investors" were closing successful connected a deal.

He besides suggested nan US could connection a woody wherever China agrees to o.k. a TikTok waste successful speech for alleviation from US tariffs connected Chinese imports.

Several imaginable buyers person cropped up successful reports.

Amazon has put successful a last-minute connection to nan White House to get TikTok, according to nan BBC's US partner CBS. Amazon declined to comment.

Trump has said he would beryllium unfastened to trading TikTok to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, arsenic good arsenic Elon Musk, though nan second said he had nary volition of buying.

Other imaginable buyers see billionaire Frank McCourt, together pinch Canadian businessman Kevin O'Leary - a personage investor connected Shark Tank, nan US type of Dragons' Den.

Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit, said successful a station connected X past period that he had joined Mr McCourt's bid.

The biggest YouTuber successful nan world Jimmy Donaldson - AKA MrBeast - has besides said he's looking to bargain TikTok arsenic portion of a group of investors.

Tim Stokely, nan British laminitis of OnlyFans, has besides to offered to bargain TikTok nether his precocious re-launched company, Zoop.

Computing elephantine Microsoft, backstage equity elephantine Blackstone, venture superior patient Andreessen Horowitz and hunt motor Perplexity AI are besides reportedly successful nan moving for a stake.

The White House has reportedly considered an action whereby ByteDance would support ownership of TikTok's algorithm, but lease it to a caller entity operating nan video-sharing app wrong nan US.

• Buyers circle and rumours swirl arsenic TikTok waste deadline looms

If nary woody is reached by 5 April, nan app could erstwhile again look a US prohibition and beryllium pulled from app stores.

Trump signed an executive order successful January, which only delayed TikTok's prohibition by 75 days.

His bid did not overturn nan prohibition connected nan app passed into rule by Congress and upheld by nan US Supreme Court.

Trump could let nan rule to stand, but inquire nan Department of Justice to proceed to disregard it.

The authorities would efficaciously beryllium telling Apple and Google they will not beryllium punished for allowing group to download TikTok connected to their devices.

TikTok returned to Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store successful February, aft nan companies were reportedly told they would not look consequences for hosting it.

Trump has besides said he would "probably" widen nan deadline, if needed.

TikTok says it has 170 cardinal US users who spent - connected mean - 51 minutes per time connected nan app successful 2024.

Experts opportunity rivals specified arsenic Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts could use if Trump's efforts to agent a waste of TikTok don't succeed.

"Chief trading officers who we've spoken pinch confirmed that they will divert their media dollars to Meta and Google if they tin nary longer advertise connected TikTok," said Kelsey Chickering, an expert astatine marketplace investigation institution Forrester.

Other imaginable winners see Amazon's Twitch, which made its sanction by hosting livestreams - a celebrated characteristic connected TikTok. Twitch is good known peculiarly to gamers, though its different contented is expanding, too.

Other Chinese-owned platforms, such arsenic Xiaohongshu - known arsenic RedNote among its US users - person besides seen accelerated maturation successful nan US and nan UK.

Additional reporting by Liv McMahon & Imran Rahman-Jones