What to know about a potential deal to keep TikTok running in US

Less than a month after prolonging a deadline to ban Tiktok for the third time, President Donald Trump told journalists on Friday evening that “we have about an agreement”, on Tiktok – but he did not offer details.

The details and the time of a potential agreement are not clear. Tiktok did not immediately respond to messages to comment on Monday.

Analyst Emarketer, Jeremy Goldman, said that while Tiktok “will plan” an American version of its application to comply with legal restrictions, the platform – if it starts without the original Tiktok algorithm – “risk of losing the very personalization that stimulates user engagement”.

In other words, Tiktok is simply not Tiktok without his algorithm.

“And making millions of people download a new application is not an easy task is at the very least,” added Goldman.

Here’s what you need to know where Tiktok is in the United States by following Trump’s comments.

Although it does not have a clear legal basis to do so, Trump continued to extend the deadline for Tiktok in order to avoid a ban in the United States, this gives its administration more time to negotiate an agreement to put the social media platform under American property.

It is not clear how many times that Trump can – or will continue to extend the ban while the government continues to try to negotiate an agreement for Tiktok, which belongs to Chinese Bydance. Although there is no clear legal basis for extensions, so far, there has been no legal dispute against the administration. Trump has raised more than 15 million followers on Tiktok since he joined last year, and he credited the trend platform for helping him gain ground among young voters. He said in January that he had a “warm place for Tiktok”.

For the moment, Tiktok continues to operate for its 170 million users in the giants of American technology Apple, Google and Oracle have been convinced to continue to offer and support the application, on the promise that the Ministry of Justice of Trump would not use the law to request potentially steep fines against them.

The Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about Tiktok than they were two years ago.

A recent investigation by Pew Research Center revealed that around a third of Americans said they had supported a tiktok ban, against 50% in March 2023. About a third, said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they were not sure.

Among those who said they had supported the ban on the social media platform, around 8 out of 10, cited concerns about the security of user data as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

Trump said on Friday or Tuesday, the United States would bring the proposal to Chinese chief Xi Jinping or to one of his representatives. The president said he thought they “probably” needed China to approve the agreement, but he was not sure they owed it.

When asked if he was convinced that China would approve the agreement, Trump said: “I’m not confident but I think yes.”

He said that for the United States: “We earn a lot of money if the agreement takes place.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington said in a statement that it had no new information to share and that “China had reiterated its position in principle several times and will deal with the relevant issues in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations”.

Although it is not clear if Bytedance plans to sell Tiktok, several potential bidders have come forward in recent months.

The aid of vice-president JD Vance, which was used to supervise a potential agreement, contacted certain parts, such as the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity IA, to obtain additional details on their offers, according to a person familiar with the problem. In January, Perplexity IA presented Bytedance with a merger proposal that would combine Perplexity’s affairs with the American operation of Tiktok.

Perplexity had no comments on Monday.

The other potential bidders include a consortium organized by the director of billionaire companies Frank McCourt, who recently recruited the co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, as a strategic advisor. Consortium investors say they offered bytedance $ 20 billion in cash for the American Tiktok. And in case of success, they plan to rethink the popular app from Blockchain technology which, according to them, will provide users with more control over their online data.

“Each day that passes without qualified disinvestment of Tiktok puts the Americans at a greater risk of manipulation and surveillance. We believe that the administration will finally obey the courts and will follow the requirements of a legal transfer,” said McCourt Internet Advocacy Organization, Project Liberty. “We are impatient to work with members of the administration, political decision -makers and our many exceptional partners in the attempt of people to achieve this objective.”

Among other possible investors are the Oracle software company and the Blackstone investment company. None of the two companies immediately responded to messages asking for comments on Monday.