Do you remember that time Tiktok shut down and disappeared from app stores? It wasn’t that long ago. For about 12 hours on January 19, Tiktok was removed from approx. 175 m US users only to be saved by a presidential throw that extended the ban period by 75 days. Don’t worry; The White House promised that we have a sale in place at the time.
Guess what? While Tiktok has several volunteers, no American company and certainly not the White House has not bought any part of Bytedance’s popular social media content sharing platform.
Throughout this process, bytance – a Chinese company – has not yet commented on direct the potential of a sale to a US company. Tikkok’s American leadership and its CEO Shou Zi Chew have publicly praised President Donald Trump for his intervention, but has mostly been silent since then.
Meanwhile, Tiktok has spent millions on television ads and infomercial segments of proclaiming Tikkok’s positive influence on people and American companies, specifically small businesses. The company currently says it has approx. 7.5 m companies on the platform. In a recent financial consequence report, Tiktok claimed that small businesses were running $ 15B in revenue in 2023.
There is no doubt that Tiktok has had a significant influence on the American business and especially culture (do you remember the central role it played under Covid?). However, the US climate and appetite on a last minute rescue of the social media platform may have changed since January.
After all, it was the literal dawn for President Trump’s second period. Since then, there have been dozens of executive orders affecting almost every part of American life (including technology; see this AI-related order) and there is a chance that consumers may have bigger fish to roast.
Still, the fate of one of the world’s most popular social media platforms hangs in balance. Here’s what we know about what’s coming next:
I reached the White House, Apple, Google and Tiktok about the current negotiation state and what could happen if the ban does not get another extension. From this writing only answered Google, but it had nothing new to share.
Although there have been no public indications of real progress or movement in the negotiation process for Tiktok, we know that more volunteers include:
Oracle already manages Tiktok’s US data so it can be the leading potential buyer.
The White House has often been mentioned as acquiring a partial share in the US-owned version of the company. Here are already legal obstacles involved in a sitting president who also runs a private or non-public sector business.
Confusion AI is the most interesting freer. In a long -term blog post, the AI search company made a passionate case for “Reconstruction of Tiktok in America.”
While bytance and the White House remain mother about deal information or progress, several US senators still call on the White House to extend the ban on October this year.
The White House stated this week that an appointment would be made before the April 5th, but has not yet offered further details besides repeating that there are “lots of potential buyers” and they have “huge interest.”
What is the next?
If the agreement does not happen at that time, Tiktok could face a new ban, and it may mean removal of Tiktok, but all byt dance American apps, including Lemon8 and the popular video editing app Capcut.
Apple and Google removed apps and even after the US president expanded the ban remained the inaccessible in the app stores for weeks.
Apple did not respond to my request for comment. As I noticed above, Google told me it had nothing new to share at this time.
So the current state of games is that although there is a lot of sales button from some major US business players and investors, there is nothing solid. There are not even leaks of a deal that is close. All we have is Trump’s promises and mostly silence from Tiktok and Bytedance.
What this boils down to is that you can’t buy something that isn’t for sale. Bytedance has never announced that it is open to a sale. Tiktok in the United States, who has appreciated the expansion, may not have control over the situation without a sales agreement from its parent company. Tiktok may be out of options.
With five days left, everything could happen, but realistically, it’s been almost a year since former President Joe Biden signed the bill that triggered ban countdown.
No material has changed and the time is running out.
