US President Donald Trump said that he had found a potential buyer for the Chinese-owned social network.
Bloomberg mentioned that Trump picked an investor consortium that was interested in buying out TikTok. The consortium includes Blackstone, Andreessen Horowitz, and Oracle. It’s the same group that was favored to acquire the deal, but negotiations were delayed due to the current trade tensions. Trump said that he will need China’s approval, but remains optimistic that its president, Xi Jinping, will ‘probably do it’. Mao Ning, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said that the country has ‘reiterated its principal position’, which could mean it won’t respond to the deal.
The consortium would have gained half of TikTok’s US business and owned by non-Chinese investors. US investors will continue to have 30%, leaving the company, ByteDance, with 20% of ownership. The TikTok app is still available to download on the App Store.
