US President Donald Trump has said he is open to the purchase of the short video app TikTok by billionaire Elon Musk or Oracle Corp. chairman Larry Ellison as part of a joint venture with the US government, UNN reports citing Bloomberg.
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"I have the authority to make a deal," Trump said at an event with Ellison at the White House on Tuesday. - "So I'm thinking about saying to somebody, 'Buy it and give half to the United States of America, half, and we'll give you a permit and they'll have a great partner.
While TikTok temporarily shut down over the weekend, Trump signed an executive order on January 20 - his first day in office - to extend the sale deadline by 75 days. While it is unclear whether Trump has the authority to extend the deadline, it may not matter in the end.
ByteDance Ltd. has publicly refused to sell TikTok, although potential buyers hope that the US Supreme Court's decision in favor of the National Security Act, which requires the company to sell or shut down the service in the US, as well as the temporary closure, may make it change its mind.
"You have an asset that has no value or a trillion dollars worth," Trump said. - "It all depends on whether the United States gives permission.
China's foreign and commerce ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Beijing would allow the U.S. government to own part of TikTok. On Monday, China's Foreign Ministry said that individual companies should make decisions about their operations and acquisitions, and it hopes that "the United States can listen to rational voices and ensure an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory environment.
While Beijing sees an opportunity for negotiation over who buys a stake in the video-sharing app, it is "unlikely" to accept a politically driven deal, according to Zhu Feng, executive dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University. "The pursuit of U.S. interests should be based on rules, not the power of the U.S. government," he added.
Potential buyers are already lining up. A group of American investors assembled by tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley, which included MrBeast, the creator of the content with the largest number of subscribers and the highest revenue on the Internet, announced the intention earlier on Tuesday.
Billionaire Frank McCourt, the 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 had already met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the offer, and McCourt made it clear that he would be happy to buy TikTok without the service's coveted content algorithm, which ByteDance and the Chinese government say is not for sale.
Unlike Musk, who may face antitrust issues because he already owns X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, O'Leary's group has no complications that could slow or prevent the deal. "I think we could close it in 90 days," the Shark Tank star said.
Amazon.com Inc. and Oracle, which already do business with TikTok, have also been mentioned as possible bidders. After Trump's assurances that he would not enforce the law, Oracle in particular helped restore the TikTok app on Sunday after an approximately 14-hour outage in the US, although it could have faced fines.
On Tuesday, Ellison was at the White House to announce a new joint venture in artificial intelligence with SoftBank Group Corp. and OpenAI.
At the end of his speech, Trump suggested that he might download TikTok to his phone.