US President Donald Trump said the TikTok deal would be completed before the deadline on Saturday.
The April 5 deadline was announced by the president when he took office in January, during which ByteDance had to find a buyer outside China for its U.S. TikTok business or risk being shut down over security concerns.
Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening, Trump noted that “we have a lot of potential buyers,” that there is “tremendous interest in TikTok,” and that he “would like to see TikTok continue to exist.”
TikTok's current non-Chinese shareholders have reportedly emerged as leading candidates to acquire the company's U.S. segment from Beijing-based ByteDance.
Last year, the U.S. passed a law requiring ByteDance to sell the video platform, which is used by about 170 million Americans, or face being banned in the country over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to carry out influence or intelligence operations against the U.S. and to collect data on American users.
TikTok has always rejected accusations that it may be influenced by Beijing.
Trump has previously acknowledged that any sale of TikTok would likely require approval from the Chinese government, and last week hinted that he would be willing to cut tariffs on China as an incentive to pursue a deal.
During his first term, Trump supported a ban on TikTok, but then changed his mind and signed up for the platform, noting that it helped him attract young people during last year's presidential campaign.
Social media experts have previously suggested that TikTok's demise in the US could have a major impact on the app in other regions, as a huge market of content creators would suddenly be unable to post their content on the platform.
It is also believed that such a scenario will lead to significant changes in the social media space as content creators in the US market begin to migrate to other apps.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
