The list of would-be buyers for TikTok in the US – both rumored and confirmed – has grown longer as the deadline for deciding its future looms.
The social media giant faces being shut down in the US unless it sells to an American company by 5 April.
The runners and riders range from US tech giants to the British entrepreneur dubbed “the king of homemade porn”.
However, TikTok and its Chinese owner, ByteDance have still not confirmed they are willing to do a deal.
They also continue to reject the reason for the sale – that the US considers their ties to the Chinese government a national security threat.
It is also not clear what exactly would be sold, in particular what would happen to TikTok’s algorithim, which decides what content to expose users to, and is considered a big reason for its success.
“TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand – it’s simply not as powerful,” said Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester Research.
Despite all this uncertainty, Ms Chickering said it was unlikely the app would go offline in the US as it briefly did in January.
“It is highly unlikely that TikTok will go dark again. All signs point to a deal or another extension.”
Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Thursday that the Trump administration was set to announce a deal ahead of the Saturday deadline.
“I think that we’re in a good place. We’re going to keep on working at it,” he said.
Credit:bbc