Politics

Trump: TikTok Has U.S. Buyer

By Jake Beardslee · June 29, 2025

President Donald Trump has claimed that a deal to sell TikTok to American buyers is underway and will be announced soon. In a Fox News interview aired Sunday, Trump stated, “We have a buyer for TikTok by the way. I think I’ll need probably China approval, and I think President Xi will probably do it.” When pressed on the buyer’s identity, he replied, “I’ll tell you in about two weeks,” describing them only as “a group of very wealthy people.”

The comments come amid months of delays in enforcing a law passed last year that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, relinquished ownership. Although the law officially took effect in January, Trump has issued a series of executive orders postponing enforcement, including a 90-day extension earlier this month that now pushes the deadline to September 17.

A near-finalized agreement in April to transfer majority control of TikTok’s U.S. operations to American interests collapsed after Trump imposed new tariffs on China, prompting further delays. ByteDance responded at the time by saying, “There are key matters to be resolved. Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law.”

Experts say the Chinese government is unlikely to greenlight any deal that involves transferring TikTok’s proprietary algorithm, according to the Associated Press. This restriction remains a significant barrier to finalizing any deal.

President Biden originally signed the sale-or-ban bill into law in 2024, and TikTok briefly went offline on January 19 before Trump’s initial delay order restored access within a day. Trump has since framed his deferrals as efforts to keep the app “alive” while working toward a long-term solution.