ByteDance confirmed it’s in discussions with the US government about plans to keep TikTok running in the US, shortly after President Donald Trump extended a deadline for the Chinese company to divest the app’s American operations.
In a statement, the company said Friday that key matters still need to be resolved and that any agreement would need to be approved under Chinese law. Under the extension announced by Trump, ByteDance has an additional 75 days to reach a deal that would sell TikTok’s US business to an American buyer and avoid a ban that had been set to take effect as soon as this weekend.
“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days,” the president said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Under a law signed last year by President Joe Biden, ByteDance was required to divest TikTok’s US unit by January 19, but the company has balked at selling a lucrative business, which has been valued from $20 billion (roughly Rs.1,71,658 crore) to as high as $150 billion (roughly Rs. 1287,438 crore) depending on the proposed terms and technology included.
Trump’s order marks the second reprieve he’s granted to buy time for a deal to keep the app running in the US. The latest extension, however, goes beyond the bounds of the divest-or-ban law, which permits the president to give a “one-time extension of not more than 90 days.”
To help secure a deal, Trump has tapped a handful of senior administration officials to help vet potential buyers, putting the portfolio in the hands of Vice President JD Vance as well as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
Trump and other top officials reviewed a proposal on Wednesday from a consortium of US investors including Oracle Corp., Blackstone Inc. and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz that had emerged as a top contender to buy TikTok, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
Under the potential arrangement, new outside investors would own 50 percent of TikTok’s US business in a unit that would be spun off from ByteDance, according to sources familiar with the planning. ByteDance’s existing US investors would also own about 30% of the business, cutting ByteDance’s stake to just below 20 percent, allowing it to meet the ownership requirements of the US security law.
The proposal envisions Oracle taking a minority stake in TikTok’s US operations and providing security assurances for user data. Under that plan, the app’s influential algorithm would remain with ByteDance, removing a potential obstacle to winning approval from the company and Chinese authorities.
On Friday, Trump reiterated his desire for China to help negotiate a sale, again suggesting that the US could provide tariff relief in exchange for Beijing’s approval.
“We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!),” Trump said in his post. “This proves that Tariffs are the most powerful Economic tool, and very important to our National Security! We do not want TikTok to ‘go dark.’ We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal.”
Critics of the proposal, though, argue that leaving the algorithm in Chinese hands would fail to comply with the divest-or-ban law and potentially allow China to access user information through a backdoor. Allowing ByteDance or China to keep the algorithm would do little to squash concerns that TikTok could be used to spread propaganda — claims that ByteDance and officials in Beijing have previously rejected.
Trump’s support for TikTok marks a turnabout from his first term in office, when he sought unsuccessfully to ban the app in 2020 over national security concerns. During his comeback bid for the White House last year, he embraced the app as a way to reach younger voters and said it helped seal his win in the November election.
In 2020, Oracle was Trump’s original choice to buy TikTok from ByteDance as part of a consortium that also included Walmart Inc. That deal fell apart in the final months of his first term amid legal challenges by ByteDance and the widening Covid-19 pandemic.
This week, Amazon.com Inc. entered the running with a submitted bid to the White House via a letter to Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to a person familiar with the matter. That proposal, however, has not been taken as seriously by the administration, according to the person, who discussed the process on condition of anonymity.
Other publicly known offers included one from a group led by billionaire Frank McCourt and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian; another featuring tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley and YouTube star MrBeast; a merger offer by San Francisco-based Perplexity AI; as well as a bid from AppLovin Corp.
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