For TikTok to stay in business in the U.S. and avoid a ban in the States, its current owner, China’s ByteDance, must find a buyer for the short-form streaming video app before April 5th. This buyer must be a company that is headquartered outside China and several U.S. companies might have an interest in the app. Back in 2019 during his first term, when President Donald Trump was not a fan of TikTok, U.S. companies like Walmart, Oracle, and Microsoft were considered possible buyers.
In August 2020, Microsoft was reported to be in serious talks with ByteDance over TikTok. Trump eventually lost interest in TikTok as the 2020 presidential election became his first concern. During the 2024 presidential election Trump had a change of heart regarding TikTok as the app helped bring young voters into Trump’s camp and this constant exposure made him a TikTok star.
Ironically, the bill signed by President Joe Biden in April 2024 gave ByteDance until January 19th, the day before Trump’s second inauguration, to find a non-Chinese buyer or face banishment in the states. Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in the Oval Office that gave TikTok 75 additional days to find a seller. That clock expires on April 5th which is why Vice President J.D. Vance said on Friday that he is confident that a deal to keep TikTok running in the U.S. will be in place by April 5th.
“There will almost certainly be a high-level agreement that I think satisfies our national security concerns, allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise.”-J.D. Vance, vice president of the United State of America
During an interview with NBC News aboard the Vice President’s Air Force Two aircraft, Vance said that Trump asked him to help broker a deal. The vice president is working with national security adviser Michael Waltz with the pair hoping to find a buyer based in the U.S. for the controversial app. Before Vance entered politics, he worked in Venture Capital.
U.S. lawmakers and even Trump himself (until he realized how useful the platform was to his campaign) had several objections to TikTok. The app was reportedly stealing personal data belonging to teens and pre-teens who used this information to help them open a TikTok account. Another fear was that China was spreading propaganda to U.S. teens by including certain videos in the timelines belonging to certain young American TikTok account owners.
“I think whether it’s through an extension, or whether it’s through actually just getting the deal in place satisfies the national security concerns, I think we’re going to be in a place where we can say TikTok is operational, and it’s also operational in a way that’s protective of Americans’ data privacy and America’s national security.”-J.D. Vance, vice president of the United State of America
TikTok has been valued at a price as high as $50 billion. Reid Rasner, CEO of the wealth management company Omnivest Financial, claims to have already submitted a bid of $47.45 billion for TikTok. ByteDance has yet to confirm that it is in talks with potential U.S. buyers of TikTok. The company also refused to disclose whether it would agree to sell TikTok to a U.S. firm.
