WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said in a Fox News interview broadcast on Sunday that he had found a buyer for the TikTok short-video app, which he described as a group of “very wealthy people” whose identities he will reveal in about two weeks.
Trump made the remarks in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” program. He said the deal he is developing would probably need China’s approval to move forward and he predicted Chinese President Xi Jinping would likely approve it.
The US president earlier this month had extended to September 17 a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the US assets of TikTok despite a law that mandated a sale or shutdown without significant progress.
A deal had been in the works this spring that would have spun off TikTok’s US operations into a new US-based firm, majority-owned and operated by US investors, but it was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump’s announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese goods.
“We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way,” Trump said. “I think I’ll need probably China’s approval. I think President Xi will probably do it.” A 2024 US law required TikTok to stop operating by January 19 unless ByteDance had completed divesting the app’s US assets or demonstrated significant progress toward a sale. Trump, who credits the app with boosting his support among young voters in last November’s presidential election, has extended the deadline three times.
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