‘I’ve reached a deal with China’: Trump announces TikTok’s sale, doesn’t name buyer

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he has reached a deal with China about the sale of TikTok.

“We have a deal on TikTok. I’ve reached a deal with China. I’m going to speak to President Xi on Friday to confirm everything up,” Trump told reporters.

While he refused to name the buyer, Trump said that “a group of very big companies” want to buy TikTok.

Under a 2024 law that was passed with bipartisan support, TikTok faces a ban in the United States unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, would sell the platform’s US operations to a non-Chinese entity. Trump has until Wednesday to secure a deal for such a sale.

.@POTUS: “We have a deal on TikTok. I’ve reached a deal with China. I’m going to speak to President Xi on Friday to confirm everything up.” pic.twitter.com/NCRfD55yth

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 16, 2025

Trump’s announcement has come a day after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that a “framework agreement” has been reached with China regarding TikTok. Separately, Trump also teased the deal on Monday. In an apparent reference to TikTok in a Truth Social post, he said that “a deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our country very much wanted to save”.

In his interaction with reporters, Trump also said that he had “made a very good trade deal and I hope good for both countries, but a very different deal than they’ve made in the past”. It was not immediately clear if he was referring to the TikTok deal or the US-China trade deal under negotiations.

Trump ignored bipartisan security concerns about TikTok and committed to save the app from a ban during 2024 election campaign. It was seen as a quid pro quo as the app had helped Trump win the election.

The law enacted last year said that TikTok would be banned in the United States unless its US operations would be sold to a non-Chinese company. The initial deadline for the sale was January 19 but Trump granted it a 75-day extension. The latest extension will expire on Wednesday.

Who could buy TikTok?

While Trump and his aides have said that multiple parties interested in buying TikTok, they have never named anyone.

Previously, Forbes has reported that at least four parties have shown interest in buying TikTok.

As per the report, Oracle along with other investors, such as Microsoft; YouTuber Mr Beast; and billionaire Frank McCourt with Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary and Guggenheim Securities, have proposed to buy TikTok’s US operations. It further said that Perplexity has proposed a merger with TikTok.