Amazon joins race to buy TikTok ahead of April 5 deadline

WASHINGTON: Amazon.com has put in a last-minute bid to buy TikTok, a US administration official said on Wednesday, just days ahead of an April 5 deadline for the short-form video app to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the country.

US President Donald Trump is expected to discuss TikTok’s fate at an Oval Office meeting on Wednesday and consider a final proposal related to the app, a White House official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Amazon declined to comment, while TikTok and its parent company ByteDance did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. Shares of Amazon rose 1.3 per cent in a volume spike after the report.

The US tech and e-commerce giant is the latest name to pop up in a list of reported buyers. Trump said last month that his administration was in touch with four different groups about the sale of the platform, without identifying them.

Private equity firm Blackstone is discussing joining ByteDance’s existing non-Chinese shareholders, led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic, in contributing fresh capital to bid for TikTok’s US business, Reuters reported last week.

US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is also in talks to add new outside investment that will buyout TikTok’s Chinese investors, as part of a bid led by Oracle and other American investors to carve it out of ByteDance, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

White House-led talks entail plans to spin off a US entity for TikTok and dilute Chinese ownership in the new business to below a 20 per cent threshold required by US law, Reuters reported last month.

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