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US President Donald Trump has said a deal for TikTok’s Chinese parent firm to sell the platform will be in place before a deadline on Saturday.
The April 5 deadline was set by the president when he entered office in January, with ByteDance having until then to find a non-Chinese buyer for TikTok’s US business or face a ban on national security grounds.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One late on Sunday, Mr Trump said “we have a lot of potential buyers”, and there was “tremendous interest in TikTok” and that he would “like to see TikTok remain alive”.
It has been reported that TikTok’s existing non-Chinese shareholders have emerged as the front-runners to takeover the firm’s US business from Beijing-based ByteDance.
Last year, the US passed a law which said ByteDance must sell the video platform, which is used by around 170 million Americans, or face a ban in the country, over fears the Chinese government could use the app to carry out influence or intelligence operations against the US, and collect data on US users.
TikTok has always denied that it could be influenced by Beijing.
Mr Trump has previously acknowledged that any sale of TikTok is likely to need Chinese government approval, and last week hinted that he would be willing to cut tariffs on China as an incentive to secure the deal.
Mr Trump supported a ban on TikTok during his first term, but has since changed his stance and joined the platform, as well as crediting it with helping him reach younger voters during last year’s presidential election campaign.
Social media experts have previously suggested that TikTok disappearing in the US could have a substantial impact on how the app works elsewhere in the world, as a huge market of content creators would suddenly be unable to post to the platform.
It is also thought that such a scenario would see the social media landscape shift drastically, as the US market of content creators began to migrate to other apps.
When TikTok briefly went dark in January when the first deadline for a sale passed, a number of other apps, including another Chinese platform, RedNote, saw a spike in new users.
Bans or blocks on China-based tech firms have been introduced in a number of other countries, including the UK, which has banned TikTok on government-issued devices.
Although an exemption to that ban was granted last month so the UK Government could launch an official account on the platform.
The “ukgov” TikTok account includes public service messages such as urging users to renew their passport, as well as reminders about what Labour’s Plan for Change entails.
At the time, Downing Street indicated that a security exemption had been granted for the account, and said the ban on TikTok on official devices which began in 2023 was still in place.