[WASHINGTON] US Vice-President JD Vance said he expected President Donald Trump to wrap up a deal for TikTok and keep the popular video-sharing app operating in the US ahead of a deadline next month.
“There will almost certainly be a high-level agreement that I think satisfies our national security concerns, allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise,” Vance, who is helping run negotiations for the forced sale, told NBC News in an interview on Friday (Mar 14).
“Whether it’s through an extension, or whether it’s through actually just getting the deal in place satisfies the national security concerns, I think we are going to be in a place where we can say TikTok is operational, and it’s also operational in a way that’s protective of Americans’ data privacy and America’s national security,” he added.
Vance did not provide any details on the participants in negotiations to purchase the app. Trump earlier this week said he is in talks with four different potential buyers for TikTok’s US business and that a deal could come “soon”. The president did not identify those contenders or say which was he was leaning in looking to close the deal.
The app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, faces an Apr 5 deadline to strike a deal for its US operations or be banned from the country under a bipartisan law passed during the Biden administration. The US is by far its most important market – ByteDance operates a sister service, Douyin, at home in China – and TikTok US was estimated to be worth as much as US$50 billion last year. Still, there’s scepticism around whether ByteDance or Beijing would approve a sale of US operations.
Trump once sought to ban TikTok himself, but has become a cheerleader for the popular video sharing app, which he credits with helping his 2024 presidential campaign bolster its outreach to younger voters. He has already extended the deadline for a sale once and indicated he is open to doing so again, but said he believes a deal is possible.
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Vance suggested that some of the paperwork might push the process over the deadline, but he was hopeful the administration would not need to seek another extension.
“I think that the outlines of this thing will be very clear. The question is whether we can get all the paper done,” he said.
“We’d like to get it done without the extension,” Vance added. “The deal itself will be very clear, but actually creating those thousands and thousands of pages of legal documents, that’s the one thing that I worry could slip.”
The public bidders to date include a group led by billionaire Frank McCourt and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, another featuring tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley and YouTube star MrBeast, and a merger offer by San Francisco-based Perplexity AI.
Trump has also floated Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s name. TikTok has worked with Oracle on the hosting of its US users’ data. Officials have also evaluated a scenario where billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk acquires TikTok in the US. Musk, who already owns the X social-media network, has said he is not interested.
Trump has said he believes the US should be granted a 50 per cent stake in the company as a condition. BLOOMBERG
