WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he has found a group of people to buy TikTok that would allow the ultra-popular app to stay accessible in the U.S. if China signs on to the potential agreement. He did not identify the group of potential buyers that he characterized as a “group of very wealthy people”
Trump made the announcement in an interview with Fox News that aired Sunday, and expressed confidence that Chinese President Xi Jinping would get on board.
“We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way," Trump told Fox News. "I think I’ll need probably China approval, and I think President Xi will probably do it."
Trump added that he would reveal their identities in “about two weeks,” a period of time invoked by the president often and most recently to describe how long he would take to decide whether the U.S. would strike Iran, which took place two days later.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt would not expand on the potential deal at Monday’s press briefing but told reporters that discussions with China on TikTok are taking place “at the highest level.” She emphasized Trump’s well-established desire to keep TikTok available for users in the U.S.
“That's the president's main goal,” Leavitt said.
The comment comes less than two weeks after the president ordered the deadline for a looming ban of the app extended for the third time since taking office. Congress voted to require TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest and find a new owner or face a ban in the U.S. over concerns about the Chinese government’s access to the data of American TikTok users more than a year ago.
The app very briefly went dark for U.S. users and Google and Apple removed it from their digital stores at the first deadline established by Congress, one day before Trump reentered the White House. But the president issued his first 75-day extension on his first day in office before issuing a second 75-day extension in April and his third – this one 90 days – earlier this month. The new deadline falls in mid September.
Despite initially calling for its banning in his first term, Trump has pledged to try to keep it from going dark in the U.S. again, often saying he has a “warm spot” for TikTok and saying it boosted him with youth voters in the 2024 election.
The TikTok conversations are taking place as the U.S. looks to lock down an understanding over trade with China. The two countries announced a temporary deal that lowered tariffs against one another and put a halt to what was a quickly escalating trade war.
Trump and Xi spoke over the phone about the trade situation earlier this month.