Trump Teases Deal to Sell TikTok to ‘Very Wealthy People’

The president made this announcement during a FOX News interview Sunday (June 29), saying a “group of very wealthy people” was set to purchase the U.S. operations of the social media platform away from China-based owner ByteDance.

“We have a buyer for TikTok,” Trump said. “I think I’ll need probably China approval and I think President Xi will probably do it.” 

The U.S. government passed a law last year requiring ByteDance to divest its ownership in TikTok U.S. or face a ban. That law was driven by national security concerns, namely that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access information about Americans.

But Trump — who has credited TikTok and its young users with helping him recapture the White House — has repeatedly pushed back that deadline. The current cutoff date is Sept. 17.

In the interview, Trump said he would offer up more details about the buyers “in about two weeks,” adding that they are “a group of very wealthy people.” 

The announcement follows reports from earlier this year that the White House was trying to hammer out a deal with private capital groups such as Andreessen Horowitz, Blackstone, Silver Lake that would give them about half of TikTok’s U.S. business. 

Meanwhile, last month saw reports that TikTok’s U.S. eCommerce workers were facing possible job cuts amid the uncertainty over the ban and the White House’s tariffs on Chinese goods.

In other social media news, PYMNTS wrote recently about the appeal of online platforms for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

“The appeal is partly financial, given that posting on these sites is low-cost or free, and linking back to merchants’ own sites provides a continuum of the shopping journey that enhances consumers’ discovery of new merchants and goods they might browse and buy,” the report said.

“In addition, the emergence of payments within social media platforms helps make the commerce experience more seamless.”

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence — from the “Global Digital Shopping Index: SMB Edition” report — found that social media is used by roughly half of SMBs, which signals that there’s an opportunity for the other half who have not yet developed their own social profiles. 

That’s particularly important given that PYMNTS Intelligence and Visa found that 63% of SMB sales are digital and spread across social media platforms, websites and third-party platforms.