Trump Administration Still Planning TikTok Purchase

US President Donald Trump said a deal to buy TikTok’s US business from China’s ByteDance is “still on the table.” Fox News reported earlier that the US administration is no longer considering the deal.

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«“White House officials have now acknowledged that the TikTok US deal — selling a Chinese company to an American one — is no longer on the table in the near future, and perhaps never, because we are heading toward a trade war that is entirely focused on China,” Fox News journalist Charles Gasparino wrote on social media X, and also made the same claims on his channel.

However, Trump later told reporters in the Oval Office that a deal to spin off TikTok’s U.S. business was still on the table. “We have a deal with some very good people, some very wealthy companies, that would do a great job of it, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens with China. It’s still on the table, that’s important,” Trump said.

Last week, the US president extended the deadline for ByteDance to sell its US business or risk blocking TikTok in the country, where the service is used by about 170 million people. Under the changed terms, the deal must be concluded no later than June 19. The proposed deal would spin off TikTok’s US business into a new company based in the country and managed by US investors.

Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Ed Markey recently said Trump lacks the legal authority to extend the ByteDance deal review. Warner also said he believes the deal does not comply with current law. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton said this week that many U.S. investors want to buy TikTok, adding that they would have to sever ties with China to do so. Previously, key contenders for TikTok’s U.S. business included Blackstone, Microsoft, Oracle, and billionaire Elon Musk, who owns the social media giant X (formerly Twitter).