US President Donald Trump has said he has found a buyer for TikTok’s US operations, without disclosing their identities or the financial terms of the deal.<\/p>\n
Speaking on\u00a0Fox News<\/a>\u2019 Sunday Morning with Maria Bartiromo,<\/i> <\/i>Trump described the potential acquirer as \u201ca group of very wealthy people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a buyer for TikTok<\/b>, by the way. I think I\u2019ll need probably China approval and I think President Xi [Jinping] will probably do it,\u201d Trump said in the taped interview.<\/i><\/p>\n Bloomberg <\/i>now reports<\/a>, citing a person familiar with the discussions, that the buyers cited by Trump are a group of investors who were previously in talks with ByteDance<\/b>, including Oracle<\/b>, Blackstone<\/b> and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz<\/b>. Those talks broke down after Beijing withheld approval in the wake of Trump’s decision to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods.<\/p>\n In March, Politico <\/i>reported<\/a>, citing three people familiar with the discussions, that Vice President\u00a0JD Vance\u00a0<\/b>and National Security Adviser\u00a0Mike Waltz<\/b>\u00a0were leading the reported talks<\/a> on behalf of Trump.<\/p>\n Bloomberg <\/i>said the talks with the consortium previously negotiated a structure that would give outside investors 50%<\/b> of TikTok’s US business while reducing ByteDance\u2019s stake to below 20%<\/b>, which would have been in line with the requirements of the divest-or-ban law. As part of the agreement, ByteDance\u2019s existing US investors would own about 30%<\/b> of the company.<\/p>\n At that time, ByteDance faced an April 5 deadline to divest TikTok\u2019s US operations or face a ban in the US, following an extension of the original January 19 deadline. President Trump has since extended the deadline<\/a> two more times. The latest deadline is September 17.<\/p>\n The news follows last week\u2019s trade agreement that reduced US tariffs on Chinese imports to 30%<\/b> from 145%<\/b>. That deal included China\u2019s commitment to ease curbs on rare earth exports in exchange for the US resuming shipments of ethane, jet engines and chip-design software.<\/p>\n However, Beijing\u2019s position on TikTok remains unchanged. On Monday (June 30), Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning<\/b> declined to comment on the sale discussions, saying only in a press briefing<\/a> that \u201cwe have made clear China\u2019s principled position on the issue more than once. I have no information to add.\u201d<\/p>\n Other reported potential buyers for TikTok are a group including<\/a>\u00a0billionaire\u00a0Frank McCourt<\/b> and <\/b>Employer.com<\/b> founder Jesse Tinsley<\/b>. Even\u00a0Tim Stokely<\/b>, the founder of\u00a0OnlyFans<\/b>, has thrown his hat in the ring with his new startup\u00a0Zoop<\/b>.<\/p>\n