Guests including Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk attend the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump within the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term because the forty seventh president of the USA.
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Amazon submitted a bid to the White House to buy the social media app TikTok from its Chinese owners, CNBC has confirmed.
The corporate sent its proposal in a letter this week to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in keeping with a source aware of the matter who asked to not be named since the discussions are confidential. The parties aren’t treating the bid seriously, nevertheless, on condition that it was submitted just days before a deadline staving off a U.S. ban is ready to run out, the person said.
Amazon declined to comment.
The e-commerce company’s offer, which was first reported by The Latest York Times, comes as TikTok’s fate within the U.S. is up within the air. The short-form video app faces one other potential shutdown within the U.S. on April 5 if ByteDance, its parent company, cannot reach a deal to divest TikTok’s American operations. Lawmakers passed a bill last 12 months setting a Jan. 19 deadline for the sale, but Trump signed an executive order granting a 75-day extension for a possible deal.
Trump could announce a call on TikTok’s fate within the U.S. as soon as Wednesday, sources aware of the situation told CNBC’s David Faber. Mobile technology company AppLovin has also made a bid for TikTok, Faber reported individually, citing sources aware of the matter.
TikTok has emerged as a serious hub for e-commerce because it has poured money into growing its online marketplace, called TikTok Shop. TikTok’s lucrative marketplace, coupled with the app’s greater than 170 million users, might be a gorgeous asset for Amazon. Following TikTok’s success, Amazon launched after which shuttered a short-form video service of its own.
Last August, the 2 corporations formed a partnership that allowed TikTok users to link their account with Amazon and make purchases from the location without leaving the app. The deal attracted scrutiny from lawmakers who were concerned about its potential national security risks.
WATCH: How TikTok Shop is thrashing Amazon and Temu in social shopping
