Trump said there’s been ‘a lot of interest in TikTok’ but did not specify which other companies are interested in buying the Chinese-owned app.
President Donald Trump said on Monday that Microsoft is one of the companies interested in buying TikTok, as the video-sharing app faces a potential nationwide ban in the United States.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the president was asked if Microsoft is in talks to acquire the Chinese-owned app, to which he replied, “I would say yes.”
Trump added that there has been “a lot of interest in TikTok” but did not offer details about other companies interested in purchasing it.
“I like bidding wars because you make your best deal. So if there’s a bidding war, that’s a good thing,” the president told reporters.
The Epoch Times has reached out to both TikTok and Microsoft for comment but did not hear back by publication time.
TikTok was briefly shut down in the United States on Jan. 19, just hours before a law signed by then-President Joe Biden took effect. The law required TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to divest its U.S. assets on national security grounds or face a nationwide ban.
The app returned online after Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20, the day of his inauguration, calling for a 75-day pause on the enforcement of the federal divest-or-ban law.
Trump said the pause would allow his administration an opportunity “to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans.”
During his first term in 2020, Trump issued an executive order requiring TikTok’s China-based parent company to divest its U.S. assets. Microsoft became one of the potential buyers and entered talks, but the deal eventually fell through, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella describing it as the “strangest thing” he had ever worked on. Trump’s divestment push ended by the time he left office in January 2021, and no potential suitor ended up acquiring the app.
