Trump finds new owner for TikTok

US President Donald Trump revealed that a group of very wealthy people wanted to buy TikTok. Photo: Bloomberg .

TikTok's uncertain future in the US may be coming to an end as US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News that he has secured a buyer for the short-form video platform. "We have a buyer for TikTok," Trump said.

Regarding the identity of this partner, Mr. Trump only revealed that it was a "very wealthy group of people" and would be announced in about two weeks.

Despite his frequent criticism of TikTok since his first term, Mr. Trump sees it as an important tool to reach young voters in the US. “I want to save TikTok. I mean, TikTok has been very good to me,” the US president shared with reporters.

On June 18, Mr. Trump announced that he would sign an executive order extending the 90-day period before the sell or ban law officially takes effect. This move marks the third time that Mr. Trump has paused the implementation of the executive order passed last year, which requires TikTok to be sold from its Chinese parent company ByteDance if it wants to continue operating in the United States. Although it took effect on January 19, the app has not been banned, except for a 14-hour outage in January.

The delay is believed to be a strategic one as the US and China resume trade talks. TikTok - with more than 170 million users in the US - is becoming a potential bargaining chip between the world's two largest economies .

A deal that was expected to see TikTok transfer majority control in the US to domestic investors was nearly completed in April. However, the plan fell apart when Mr Trump announced a series of new tariffs on Chinese goods, forcing the parties to pause negotiations. ByteDance later asserted: “Any deal must be approved in accordance with Chinese law.”

Beijing has yet to give any clear indication that it will allow the deal, beyond its insistence on retaining the “algorithm” that is central to TikTok’s appeal. This poses a major challenge to any deal if Washington insists on the transfer of all the underlying technology.

Source: https://znews.vn/ong-trump-tim-duoc-chu-moi-cho-tiktok-post1564697.html