President Trump names the company currently in talks to save TikTok

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. TweakTown may also earn commissions from other affiliate partners at no extra cost to you.

The fate of TikTok currently stands upon the edge of a knife, and if it strays but a little, it will fail, to the ruin of 170 million users across the United States.

2

TikTok is currently in limbo as the US government initiated the ban of the app, citing national security reasons as lawmakers found the app could be used to harvest the data of the 170 million Americans that use it and feed that data to the Chinese government. TikTok was given an ultimatum by the US government with a deadline of January 19.

That ultimatum was to sell the app to a US government-verified entity or be banned from both app marketplaces and US telecommunications services. The January 19 deadline was reached, and TikTok was briefly made unavailable in the US for approximately 16 hours.

Upon taking office, President Trump granted an additional 75-day extension to TikTok in hopes of reaching a conclusion with ByteDance about its sale, with Trump previously suggesting the US should own 50% of the app and the other 50% being owned by ByteDance. Now, Trump has told reporters on Monday that Microsoft is currently in talks to acquire TikTok, and that he hopes a bidding war opens up for the popular app.

Notably, Microsoft isn't the only company in talks to buy the app, with MrBeast recently announcing he's making an official offer and AI startup Perplexity AI proposing on Sunday a merger between it and TikTok, which will eventually result in the US government gaining control of half of the company.

• Read more: iPhone's with TikTok installed are being sold on eBay for $50,000