President Trump has extended the deadline for a TikTok deal — and pushed the bidding war for the social media app into overdrive.
The president is known for his dealmaking and he is enjoying the jockeying, sources told me.
“Trump is the ultimate decision maker,” a source close to Trump said. “He just extended the deal. All bids are on the table.”
Oracle is seen as the front-runner in part because it already hosts TikTok’s data on its servers but other tech giants, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Perplexity, are also pushing for a deal
AppLovin, the mobile technology company that provides a platform for app developers to grow their businesses, also jumped into the race for this week, and I spoke with CEO Adam Foroughi about their offer.
Foroughi joins a massive list of billionaires and celebrities — ranging from Mr. Beast to Mr. Wonderful — who have also reportedly been angling to purchase the app.
Foroughi is partnering with casino mogul Steve Wynn, according to reports, though the two have yet to actually meet in person, a source adds. They’re working with a consortium of additional investors to propose a deal that would join the two companies and allow TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to hold onto a 20% stake while also satisfying security concerns. The deal would be an equity merger which would mean the Chinese would benefit from a possible IPO (or any other upside).
“We’re proposing a full merger, which would keep the 7,000 engineers in China employed, and it would benefit ByteDance by giving it stock and the upside of a deal,” Foroughi, who is worth an estimated $15 billion according to Forbes, told me. “We would create a partnership with China that would benefit both of us.”
As an added sweetener, he is also offering to give the nascent US sovereign wealth fund a piece of the deal — giving the US a vested interest in the success of TikTok.
Sources close to Vice President JD Vance, who has been tasked with finalizing a deal, say AppLovin isn’t under serious consideration at this point.
But Foroughi contends he believes AppLovin is the only company with a deal that solves all the problems of national security (more on that later). Just as importantly, he said, it is only company that can actually offer China something as part of their deal.
That’s a big selling point because the Chinese government — which has to approve the sale — has stated emphatically that it will not allow a sale of the algorithm alone.
And without the coveted algorithm that knows just what puppy videos to show you to keep you addicted for hours, the value of TikTok just isn’t the same — it would only be a user base and a brand.
Foroughi also claims that his proposal would satisfy all the national security concerns around TikTok, which he says are threefold.
“There are concerns about the Chinese accessing American data, the bias they may be inserting into the algorithm, and the tracking [of users] they may be able to do,” he said.
As an added bonus, he believes AppLovin’s analytics business can boost the ability of existing small businesses to reach customers.
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“TikTok has to stay alive — it is critical to the U.S. economy and jobs — and AppLovin would boost that,” he said.
Investors in the potential deal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that they have spoken with Vice President J.D. Vance, and the group has formally met with the Vice President’s office as well as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
The New York Post has reached out to the Vice President for comment.
AppLovin has also been speaking with other key players — namely private equity firms that already own a substantial piece of the asset — such as General Atlantic’s Bill Ford.
Foroughi drills it down into a summary he knows Trump would appreciate.
“It’s a win, win, win,” he told me. “Our president is the best dealmaker — we are taking a big shot, trying to solve everything and make it a win.”
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