Donald Trump says he has a buyer for TikTok’s US operations, but won’t reveal name for ‘two weeks’
Donald Trump also signaled he was open to extending the deadline for the forced sale of TikTok’s US operations.
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Former US President Donald Trump has claimed he has lined up a buyer for the US arm of TikTok but says he will not disclose who it is for another two weeks. In an interview on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Trump said the ByteDance-owned short-video app will be acquired in the US by a “group of very wealthy people.”
“We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way. I think I’ll need probably China approval and I think President Xi will probably do it,” Trump added during the interview, indicating that any deal would likely need a green light from Beijing.
Trump also signaled he was open to extending the deadline for the forced sale of TikTok’s US operations. This would be the third time the deadline has been pushed back, giving ByteDance up to 90 more days beyond June 19 to complete a sale and avoid a ban.
According to Bloomberg, a deal for TikTok’s US assets was nearly finalized before Trump announced his so-called “reciprocal tariffs” in April. That prospective deal reportedly involved a consortium of prominent US investors, including Oracle Corp., private equity giant Blackstone Inc., and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
However, negotiations appeared to stall after Trump’s tariff announcement, as broader tensions between the US and China escalated over trade.
Why Is TikTok Looking for a US Buyer? Last year, a bipartisan law passed by the US Congress required that TikTok’s American operations be sold to US buyers or face an outright ban, citing national security concerns over the company’s Chinese ownership. Lawmakers have argued that TikTok’s ties to Beijing pose risks of data collection and potential surveillance.
The app had previously been briefly banned in the US before Trump took office. During his first term, he aggressively pushed to ban TikTok, framing it as a national security threat.
Yet Trump has more recently softened his stance. In fact, during an interview with NBC in May, he acknowledged a fondness for the app, noting its political value.
“I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said, suggesting he believed the platform had helped him connect with young voters during the last election cycle.
While Trump did not reveal the identity of the potential buyers in the Fox News interview, his remarks hint at ongoing high-level negotiations that could determine whether TikTok remains available to its millions of US users — or faces renewed legal and regulatory pressure to exit the American market.
