Donald Trump has given TikTok 75 days to convince US officials it doesn’t threaten national security – most likely by finding a new, US owner for its American operation.
He signed the executive order within hours of entering the White House and told reporters: “I tell you what. Every rich person has called me about TikTok.”
The wildly popular social media platform briefly went offline in the US on Sunday ahead of a ban, but hours later, it came back online with a message thanking the president.
“We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States,” it said in a statement.
TikTok is owned by Chinese company Bytedance, and US politicians are worried sensitive data about Americans could be given to the Chinese government, which TikTok has repeatedly denied.
So who could buy the all-singing, all-dancing short video platform, which is valued at around $100bn (£82bn) if it is sold with its algorithm?
MrBeast
Youtuber MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, posted on 14 January: “Okay fine, I’ll buy TikTok so it doesn’t get banned.”
People took him seriously; he soon posted again saying several billionaires had contacted him to try and make the bid a reality.
He posted more updates from meeting rooms where he said he had been discussing the bid with “a bunch of billionaires”.
After Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Youtuber posted a video to TikTok saying he was on a private jet “about to put in my official offer for this platform”.
“I might become you guys’ new CEO, I’m super excited,” he said.
Elon Musk
The tech billionaire Elon Musk hasn’t directly commented on rumours he could buy TikTok.
However, Bloomberg News reported that officials in Beijing were considering whether to allow a possible sale to the X owner.
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Although TikTok denied the rumours, saying “We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction”, Mr Musk has a lot of business dealings with China and may be a favourable owner if ByteDance is forced to sell.
With Musk running President Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, he would be well placed to help Chinese relations with the new Trump administration.
Owning the US TikTok operation could also give him plenty of new data on which to train xAI.
Shark Tank investor
Kevin O’Leary, a celebrity investor on Shark Tank (America’s version of Dragon’s Den) put in a bid to buy the platform as part of a group calling themselves The People’s Bid for TikTok.
They submitted their bid the day before Supreme Court judges upheld a law that banned the app but didn’t disclose how much money they’d put on the table.
The group, also backed by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners Lee, offered to buy the platform without its algorithm.
They then planned to rebuild the back end of the app using American-owned technology,
Many said it would be tricky to maintain the app that way, given the Chinese-made algorithm is what makes it so popular.
Perplexity AI
A US search engine startup, Perplexity AI, reportedly offered to merge with TikTok US on Saturday.
Under that bid, most of ByteDance’s investors would retain their equity stakes and the partnership would give more video to Perplexity to use in their model.
The US government?
When TikTok came back online on Sunday, President Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture.”
It’s unclear how this would work and Mr Trump hasn’t offered any more details since taking office.
When the ban was being discussed in Congress back in March 2024, there were other businesspeople keen to make an offer too.
Those included the former chief executive of games company Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick and former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.