Who’s Trying to Buy TikTok?
US President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for the sale of TikTok for a second time, giving ByteDance, the app’s Chinese parent company, more time to find a buyer. The original deadline was set to take effect in January, but Trump intervened and delayed it until April 5. The latest extension pushes the deadline to June.
The US government has expressed concerns that TikTok poses a threat to national security due to the potential for Chinese authorities to access user data. Beijing has denied these allegations. Several potential buyers have emerged, including Amazon, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Elon Musk, although the latter has stated he has no intention of buying. Other potential buyers include billionaire Frank McCourt, Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary, and the biggest YouTuber in the world, Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast.
Other companies reportedly in the running include Microsoft, private equity giant Blackstone, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and search engine Perplexity AI. The White House has considered an option where ByteDance would retain ownership of TikTok’s algorithm but lease it to a new entity operating the app in the US.
If no deal is reached, TikTok could face another US ban and be removed from app stores. Trump’s executive order in January delayed the ban by 75 days but did not overturn the law passed by Congress. Trump has stated that he would “probably” extend the deadline again if needed and has expressed a desire to see TikTok remain operational.
Experts believe that if TikTok is banned, rivals such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts could benefit. “Chief marketing officers who we’ve spoken with confirmed that they will divert their media dollars to Meta and Google if they can no longer advertise on TikTok,” said Kelsey Chickering, an analyst at Forrester.
Other potential winners include Amazon’s Twitch, a platform known for hosting livestreams, and Xiaohongshu, a Chinese-owned platform that has seen rapid growth in the US and UK. TikTok has 170 million US users who spent an average of 51 minutes per day on the app in 2024.
