US President Donald Trump said a deal to sell the platform to TikTok's Chinese parent company would be completed before a deadline on Saturday.
The April 5 deadline was set by the president when he took office in January. By then, ByteDance had to find a buyer outside China for TikTok’s U.S. business or face being banned on national security grounds.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening, Mr Trump said “we have a lot of potential buyers,” that there is “tremendous interest in TikTok” and that he “would like to see TikTok continue to exist.”
TikTok's existing non-Chinese shareholders have reportedly emerged as leading contenders to take over the company's US business from Beijing-based ByteDance.
Last year, the U.S. passed a law requiring ByteDance to sell the video platform, which is used by about 170 million Americans, or face a ban in the country over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to conduct influence or intelligence operations against the U.S. and collect data on American users.
TikTok has always denied that it is influenced by Beijing.
Mr Trump has previously acknowledged that any sale of TikTok would likely require approval from the Chinese government, and last week hinted that he would be willing to cut tariffs on China as an incentive to pursue a deal.
During his first term, Trump supported a ban on TikTok, but has since reversed his stance and joined the platform, and credited it with helping him reach young voters during last year's presidential campaign.
Social media experts have previously suggested that TikTok's demise in the US could have a significant impact on the app in other parts of the world, as a huge market of content creators would suddenly be unable to publish content on the platform.
It is also believed that such a scenario will lead to a dramatic change in the social media landscape as content creators in the US market begin to migrate to other apps.
When TikTok briefly went down in January due to its first sale deadline, a number of other apps, including another Chinese platform RedNote, saw a surge in new users.
Bans or blocks on Chinese tech companies have been imposed in a number of other countries, including the UK, which banned TikTok on government-issued devices.
Although an exception to that ban was granted last month to allow the UK government to launch an official account on the platform.
The 'ukgov' TikTok account features public service announcements, such as urging users to renew their passports, as well as reminders about what Labour's Agenda for Change entails.
At the time, Downing Street said the account had been granted an exemption from security rules and said the ban on TikTok on official devices, which began in 2023, was still in place.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
