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Palm Beach, June 29: Donald Trump says he’s got buyers lined up for TikTok’s U.S. business. But until someone puts up cash and clears regulatory landmines, it’s still just talk.
In an interview aired Saturday on Fox News, the former president said a “group of very wealthy people” is preparing to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations, with names to be disclosed “in about two weeks.” That timeline, if true, would put a potential deal announcement dangerously close to mid-August—barely a month before a federally mandated divestiture deadline kicks in.
Trump’s Back at the Table—But This Time He’s Not Alone
This isn’t Trump freelancing from a podium. Sources cited by the Financial Times say firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Blackstone, and Silver Lake are in the mix, along with existing investors like KKR and General Atlantic. Collectively, they could hold a controlling stake in a restructured U.S. TikTok entity—assuming ByteDance agrees to a sale, and Beijing doesn’t shut it down before it starts.
But the asset on the table isn’t just a social media app. It’s a precision-engineered algorithm, built to optimize watch time by tracking thousands of behavioral signals. That algorithm, by law, can’t be exported from China without state approval. ByteDance has made clear it isn’t selling it.
That’s not a hurdle. It’s a wall.
A Sale Without the Engine
Buying TikTok without the algorithm is like buying YouTube without the search bar—or Netflix without its recommendation engine. You get the user base, but not the secret sauce. That’s the part that keeps viewers glued to their screens and advertisers coming back.
From a dealmaking perspective, any buyer who can’t access the algorithm either needs to rebuild it from scratch—highly unlikely before the September 17 deadline—or license it under strict terms. Either option opens up a thicket of compliance risks, not to mention a high chance the deal wouldn’t satisfy U.S. national security standards.
No algorithm, no deal. And if there’s no deal, TikTok faces a full-scale ban across U.S. app stores and internet infrastructure.
The Clock Is Not Theirs to Control
The deadline wasn’t set by Trump. It was written into law and signed by President Biden earlier this year, giving ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok U.S. or shut it down. That clock runs out September 17. ByteDance is suing to block the order, but unless a court intervenes quickly, the legal mandate stands.
Trump’s re-entry into the fray changes the optics, not the timeline. What it might do is rattle Washington’s cage. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) has yet to weigh in publicly. Neither has the Commerce Department, which would oversee enforcement if the app is pulled from U.S. networks.
But Congress is watching. Several lawmakers from both parties have signaled that any deal must result in full operational separation from Chinese control—including server access, data handling, and, yes, the algorithm. A partial cut won’t fly.
Second Time’s the Charm?
Trump’s first TikTok sale push—remember Oracle and Walmart in 2020?—collapsed under legal scrutiny and lack of follow-through from ByteDance and Beijing. That bid tried to thread the needle between U.S. oversight and Chinese export controls. It didn’t work then, and the math hasn’t gotten any easier.
This time, the stakes are higher, the timeline tighter, and the market more fragmented. TikTok U.S. is still enormously popular, but competitors like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have eaten into its mindshare. Any protracted outage could reset user loyalty overnight.
So while Trump’s assertion may generate headlines, dealmakers know what really counts: term sheets, approvals, and actual technology transfer. So far, none of those have surfaced.
And until they do, all Trump has is a promise—and less than 80 days to make it real.
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