President Trump has told Fox News in a broadcast interview that the government has found “a group of very wealthy people” to buy TikTok from ByteDance. Multiple administrations have taken a dim view of TikTok because they believe the Chinese government has access to user data.
Biden signed off on a law to ban TikTok with the ban coming into force just as Trump was about to take office. Trump quickly extended the deadline for TikTok to find a buyer for the US part of the business, and that’s now very close to being announced.
Multiple people have expressed an interest in buying the company since sale talks began. Names that have popped up include YouTuber Mr Beast, the AI search firm Perplexity, and Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank. Trump’s remarks that a group of wealthy people have agreed to buy likely means no one of these entities have decided to buy the firm, but they could have teamed up.
In the interview with Fox News, Trump said he thinks that the Chinese government will probably need to agree to the deal, but that he thinks President Xi of China will agree to it. All of this is coming on the back of the two countries agreeing to a trade deal, so China may be feeling more ready to sign off on the TikTok deal.
If the deal does eventually go through and the US part of TikTok is sold off to the group of buyers, it will create a lot more stability for content creators who have been left wondering for over a year what will happen to the platform. Creators work hard to build up their following on the platform and with the looming ban, they could lose everything they’ve worked on.
Hopefully, we will find out who is buying the company in the next 2 weeks as Trump has set out so the matter can be resolved swiftly.
Via: Sky News | Image via Depositphotos.com