President Donald Trump said he would be open to billionaire supporter Elon Musk or Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison purchasing social video app TikTok as part of a joint venture with the US government.
“I have the right to make a deal,” Trump said at an event alongside Ellison at the White House on Tuesday. “So what I’m thinking about saying to somebody is buy it and give half to the United States of America, half, and we’ll give you the permit, and they’ll have a great partner.”
While TikTok temporarily went offline over the weekend, Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 – his first day in office – to extend the deadline for a sale by 75 days. While it’s not clear that Trump has the authority to extend the deadline, it may not ultimately matter.
ByteDance Ltd. has publicly refused to sell TikTok, though prospective buyers hope the Supreme Court’s ruling and the brief TikTok shutdown could push it to reconsider.
“You have an asset that has no value or has a trillion dollar value,” Trump said. “It all depends on whether or not the United States gives the permit.”
China’s foreign and commerce ministries didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on whether Beijing would allow the American government to own part of TikTok.
While Beijing does see space for negotiating who buys a stake in the video sharing app, it’s “unlikely” to accept a deal driven by politics, according to Zhu Feng, executive dean of Nanjing University’s School of International Studies.
“The pursuits of US interests should be based on rules, not on the strength of the US government,” he added.
Potential Buyers
Potential bidders are already lining up. A group of American investors assembled by tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley that included MrBeast, the internet’s most-followed and highest-earning content creator, announced a bid earlier Tuesday.
Billionaire Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary made a formal offer to buy TikTok earlier this month. O’Leary has already met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the bid, and McCourt has made clear he’d be happy to buy TikTok without the service’s coveted content algorithm, which ByteDance and China’s government have said is not for sale.
Amazon.com Inc. and Oracle, both of which already do business with TikTok, have also been floated as possible suitors. After assurances from Trump that he wouldn’t enforce the law, Oracle notably helped restore TikTok’s app on Sunday after a roughly 14-hour US shutdown even though it could face fines for doing so.
Ellison was at the White House on Tuesday to announce a new joint artificial intelligence venture alongside Softbank Group Corp. and OpenAI LLC.
At the end of his remarks, Trump suggested he might download TikTok on his phone.
“I think I might put it there. I think I’ll get it right now. By the way, again we won the young vote. I think I won it through Tiktok, so I have a warm spot in my heart for Tiktok,” he said.
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