Who is buying TikTok? Trump promises answers in 'two weeks'

China-owned ByteDance has not approved any sale

US President Donald Trump said his administration has identified buyers for the China-owned social media platform TikTok, although he declined to name anyone and acknowledged he still needed approval from Beijing.

"I think [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] will probably do it," Mr Trump told Fox News on Sunday. When asked who could buy TikTok, he said he would have more details in "two weeks".

TikTok's Washington office. Cody Combs / The National

Prof Mark MacCarthy, a senior fellow at the Institute for Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown Law in Washington, expressed scepticism over Mr Trump's recent TikTok claims. "I'll believe it when I see it," he said, noting the ambiguity of the statement.

Prof MacCarthy had previously called the battle between ByteDance and US legislators a "compelling conflict between First Amendment jurisprudence and the national security state".

Several weeks ago, for a third time, Mr Trump made a decision to extend a deadline that would have caused TikTok to go dark in the US. That deadline stems from legislation passed in 2024 by US Congress that sought to force ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to divest from the platform and find a US-based owner.

If ByteDance does not sell TikTok by a certain deadline, penalties could force distributors to remove the app in the US.

The motivations for that law are rooted in concern from some elected officials in the US that user data generated and stored by TikTok could ultimately be vulnerable to compromise by the Chinese government.

TikTok has repeatedly denied accusations of user data being vulnerable, but those denials have done little to soothe the nerves of Democratic and Republican US legislators at state and federal levels.

After a loss at the US Supreme Court where ByteDance tried to challenge the TikTok ban legislation, the company has not indicated that it is interested in divesting the social platform from its portfolio, nor has it mentioned that it is willing to sell to any US investor.

In April it was reported that US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz was in talks to buy a stake in TikTok, and a month earlier, former US Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin announced he was also trying to put together a group of investors to buy the platform.

TikTok has not responded to The National's requests to comment on this story.

Its last correspondence with media about the company's negotiations with Mr Trump was on April 4, when he decided to give ByteDance a second deadline extension.

In a statement to The National in April, ByteDance said that any deal regarding TikTok must be approved under Chinese law.

"ByteDance has been in discussion with the US government regarding a potential solution for TikTok US," it said in an emailed response in April. "Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law," ByteDance added.

Under the new deadline, ByteDance has until September 17 to come up with a deal that satisfies the law and keeps the platform running in the US.

In Mr Trump's "big, beautiful bill", there are provisions that would limit the ability of state governments to make local regulations related to AI and other areas of technology.

Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell was critical of Mr Trump's handling of the issue.

“I have no idea why the President of the United States has not protected the American people or the American military from the Chinese scams that are happening on Tiktok," Ms Cantwell said. "We would never let China own ABC News and put out Chinese communist propaganda on ABC News, but we let them do that on TikTok."