Amazon is among the suitors for TikTok as the digital platform nears a closely watched deadline to restructure its operations, a source with knowledge of internal discussions has confirmed to Deadline.
“There is in interest from Amazon, but there is interest from others as well, so don’t read too much into that,” the well-positioned Washington, D.C. source said. “The hope is if a deal is near, the Saturday cutoff will be extended by Trump.”
The New York Times earlier Wednesday reported on the positioning by Amazon, which has made a series of strategic moves in recent months to gain favor with the White House. The tech giant’s bid for all of TikTok came via an offer letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick,
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While President Donald Trump has vacillated on TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance, he has recently taken the populist stance that he would fight to save the app even after a congressional ban was upheld by the Supreme Court. At the center of the tangle over TikTok is the oversight of its operations by the Chinese government. TikTok execs have maintained that they secure user data on separate services that are not accessed by government officials.
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Oracle, which is run by longtime Trump supporter Larry Ellison, houses TikTok’s servers and has factored prominently into a number of proposed deals to take control of TikTok, at least in the U.S.
CNBC separately reported that Ellison and Oracle could be part of a deal in which the ownership of ByteDance would be diluted below 20%, with new investors entering via a recapitalization. That would enable the company to more convincingly claim that it is not controlled by China, sources told the business network.
Determining the fate of TikTok has engendered an unusual amount of bipartisan cooperation on Capitol Hill, with Republican and Democratic lawmakers both raising concerns about the wildly popular app. A bill passed by both houses was meant to become law in January, but Trump delayed enforcement of it until this Saturday, April 5. Ahead of that deadline, multiple bidders have expressed interest.
Trump had looked to implement a ban of TikTok during his first term, but a deal to put its U.S. operations in new hands never materialized. The Biden Administration then referred the matter back to the courts, and over the intervening years TikTok has only grown in scale and influence.
MORE to come …
