Get ready with me to see who could buy TikTok.
Ahead of President Donald Trump’s April 5 deadline for ByteDance, the popular social media app’s Chinese owner, to sell their U.S. operations to an approved buyer, Jeff Bezos’ company Amazon has emerged as a potential customer, a person familiar with the ongoing discussions told NBC News.
The online retailer’s bid was sent in a letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, but, given that it was submitted only days before the deadline, their offer is not being treated as serious, per the insider.
If a deal is not made with a non-Chinese buyer before the April 5 deadline, TikTok is likely to be banned in the U.S, though the president has hinted at a possible extension, according to the outlet.
The app briefly went dark in January after the company did not adhere to legislation passed under former president Joe Biden last year, though Trump extended ByteDance’s deadline on his first day in office, resuming the app’s operations hours after the ban went into effect.
And though it’s unclear if Amazon could take over the video app, the president noted that he would “like to see TikTok remain alive” and is confident a deal will be made with a buyer.
“We have a lot of potential buyers,” Trump told reporters March 30. “There’s tremendous interest in TikTok.”
Commenting that the final decision is “going to be my decision,” he added, “TikTok is very interesting. A lot of people want to buy it.”
Despite the president’s confidence that a deal could be reached by his April 5 deadline, Vance has noted that more intricate details of a plan could take longer to hash out.
“Typically, some of these deals that are much smaller and involve much less capital take months to close,” he told NBC News March 14. “We’re trying to close this thing by early April. I think that the outlines of this thing will be very clear. The question is whether we can get all the paper done.”
(E! and NBC News are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)
