Associated Press reports that Amazon placed a last-minute bid to purchase the popular video-sharing app TikTok before the April 5 deadline for selling the company to an American company.
The offer letter was submitted on April 2 in a letter to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Under a law upheld by President Donald Trump, TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, is required to sell the platform to an approved buyer or risk having it banned in the U.S. President has floated the idea of extending the deadline but said he “expects” a deal to be made on time.
White House officials said, “If and when there is an announcement on TikTok, it will come from President Trump,” however, according to NBC News, he has leaned on Vance and national security adviser Michael Waltz to lead the effort to save the app from going black. Vance, who worked in the venture capital space before entering politics, is trying his hardest to avoid a deadline extension, highlighting that deals involving more capital take a certain amount of time. “Typically, some of these deals that are much smaller and involve much less capital take months to close,” Vance said.
“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.”
Prior to Trump taking office, former President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, giving ByteDance until January 2025 to sell the app. Bipartisan efforts supported Biden, with lawmakers pushing a narrative of national security concerns, claiming the company was sharing U.S. user data with the Chinese government.
The FBI and the Federal Communications Commission warned that TikTok could share user data like browsing history, location, and biometric identifiers with China’s authoritarian government. However, TikTok defended itself, saying that has never happened and it wouldn’t do so if asked.
The U.S. government has yet to provide evidence of its claims.
After the President said, “We have a lot of potential buyers,” the Trump administration listed “four different groups” they are working with to potentially solidify a sale. Amazon is now on the list with Project Liberty, an organization led by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, with support from “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary, Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian, and internet celebrity “Mr. Beast.”
Other potential suitors include former video game CEO Bobby Kotick, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, and Microsoft. Last-minute bidders wanting to knock Amazon out of the bidding war are also listed, including the founder of payroll firm Employer.com, Jesse Tinsley, who said he offered ByteDance over $30 billion for the platform and Wyoming small business owner Reid Rasner, who threw in a bid to pay the company $47.5 billion in exchange for ownership.
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