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A spate of tech companies and billionaires have placed bids for TikTok—including Amazon and AppLovin separately this week—ahead of Saturday’s deadline for China-based ByteDance to sell to a U.S. buyer.
Now, ABC News is reporting that the Trump Administration is considering a leasing deal instead — and the president will sign an executive order Friday to extend the ban deadline.
The leasing option would let China keep control of its prized TikTok algorithm, though the U.S. company holding the lease would have a minority stake, a “source close to the deal” told the outlet. Oracle would supervise the lease, per NPR. Oracle already provides TikTok with backend tech support.
In addition to Amazon and AppLovin’s bids this week, formal offers to acquire the app have been submitted from billionaire and former L.A. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt (who teamed up with Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian) in January. AI startup Perplexity also submitted a more than $50 billion offer to merge its business with TikTok’s U.S. division.
The TikTok saga has been ongoing since April 2024 when lawmakers concerned about U.S. user data making its way to the Chinese government passed a law to force ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the U.S. Since then, TikTok went dark for its 170 million U.S. users for one day, before Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline for 75 days.
The 75 days is up tomorrow.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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