 "TikTok deal to be finalised by Saturday, says Trump")
US President Donald Trump has said that he expects the TikTok deal to be finalised by Saturday.
The extension that Trump gave TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, after coming to office through an executive action is set to expire on Saturday. To escape a ban as per a law signed into law last year by former President Joe Biden, ByteDance has to sell TikTok’s US operations to a non-Chinese entity by Saturday.
“We have a lot of potential buyers. There’s tremendous interest in TikTok. I’d like to see TikTok remain alive,” said Trump on Sunday on the Air Force One.
TikTok is a video-sharing platform that is used by the Communist Party of China (CPC) as a tool to indoctrinate users. It has been found that the CPC uses the app to develop a favourable view of China among its users and peddle its anti-Western propaganda. However, as the app was central in Trump’s successful election campaign, he vowed to save the app upon winning despite national security risks.
ALSO READ: TikTok manipulates content, brainwashes users into liking China, finds research
As a result, Trump granted a 75-day stay on the ban on TikTok in one of the first executive actions after assuming office on January 20. Before the grant of the extension, TikTok had gone dark in the United States after ByteDance did not sell the US operations by the deadline of Jan. 19.
Last week, Trump said that he could offer concessions to China if the CPC would facilitate the sale of TikTok’s US operations. As ByteDance is a Chinese company, the CPC would need to approve any deal selling its US operations.
Trump said that “maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done”.
Trump further said, “TikTok is big, but every point in tariffs is worth more than TikTok. Sounds like something I’d do.”
Previously, Forbes has reported that there are at least four proposals for the purchase of TikTok’s US operations: (1) Oracle has proposed to buy TikTok along with other investors, such as Microsoft; (2) Perplexity AI has proposed a merger with TikTok; (3) YouTuber Mr Beast has offered to buy TikTok’s US operations; (4) Billionaire Frank McCourt, backed by Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary and Guggenheim Securities, has proposed to buy TikTok’s US operations
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