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Amid Third TikTok Ban Extension, Trump Claims to Have Potential Buyer

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Popular social network TikTok is still operating in the United States under a ban that has been paused by U.S. President Donald Trump, but it's possible that a deal for the sale of company is closer to being completed.

tiktok-logo.jpg

Trump this week said that he identified a buyer to purchase TikTok from ByteDance, and according to Bloomberg, Trump's pick is an investor consortium that includes Oracle, Blackstone, and Andreessen Horowitz. The consortium was previously the top choice to buy TikTok back in April, but negotiations stalled due to trade tensions.

Any deal for TikTok has to be approved by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has previously declined to allow negotiations to move forward. "We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way," said Trump. "I think I'll need China approval, and I think President Xi will probably do it." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday that China has "reiterated its principled position," and there was nothing to add, suggesting that China plans to continue to resist a deal for TikTok.

TikTok has been banned in the U.S. since January 19, and the law requires the social network to be sold to a non-Chinese company. Under the terms of the law, app stores are supposed to stop distributing the TikTok app or face consequences, but Trump has paused the enforcement of the mandate three times now.

The original deal with the investor consortium would have seen 50 percent of TikTok's U.S. business transferred to a new unit that would be owned by outside investors. Existing U.S. investors would continue to own 30 percent of TikTok's U.S. operations, and ByteDance would still have just under 20 percent ownership.

TikTok continues to be available for download.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Amid Third TikTok Ban Extension, Trump Claims to Have Potential Buyer
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/01/trump-tiktok-buyer/
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Reactions: Mainyehc, JapanApple, Musashi3052 and 1 other person
“We’ve got a TREMENDOUS potential buyer for TikTok — everybody’s talking about it. EVERYBODY. Some of the biggest, most successful people — you know who they are — they’re very interested. We’re looking at it very closely, very strongly. A lot of people didn’t think it could happen, but we’re making it happen. We’ll probably know more in about two weeks, maybe less. It’s moving very fast. People are saying it could be one of the greatest deals ever, maybe the greatest. We’ll see what happens but it’s going to be VERY EXCITING. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”
 
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Reactions: NightFlight, Bobbuilds69, FriendlyMackle and 25 others
Maybe Elon Musk could buy it. Is this one of the days Trump and Musk love each other, or one of the days they hate each other? It’s hard to keep track.
 
This time it’s the truth. He just says a lot of things because that’s how super duper genius brains works. He’s constantly saying seemingly conflicting things because it’s like 5 dimensional Chess Game in his mind. It all makes sense eventually.
 
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Reactions: Mainyehc, iPay, buddhistMonkey and 3 others
Xi Jinping may be in the process of being removed from what I read in the reports from people who cover China.
 
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