Who’s bidding for TikTok?

Amazon entered a bid to purchase TikTok on Wednesday, the same day president Donald Trump held a White House meeting to strategise the prevention of the app’s ban. Trump also announced a 34% tariff on China’s imports as part of his “Liberation Day” announcement, which may raise tensions with the country needed to approve a TikTok deal.

Trump told the press that his administration is working with “four different groups” interested in purchasing TikTok before April 5, the deadline for TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to sell to a non-Chinese owner—or lose the app’s 170 million US users.

With that deadline quickly approaching, who exactly is bidding for TikTok? Here’s a short-form cheat sheet. 

Amazon’s last-minute bid

Amazon submitted a 11th-hour bid for TikTok in a letter submitted to vice president JD Vance and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday. Anonymous Trump administration officials confirmed to The New York Times that the White House doesn’t believe the bid will succeed, but regardless, Amazon’s shares rose more than 2% on news of the offer. The bid continues Amazon’s efforts to build an in-house social media network. The company acquired Twitch in 2014 and Goodreads the year before, and attempted to launch Inspire, a TikTok-similar video platform that was deleted from the Amazon app in February.

Oracle’s algorithmic-leasing plan

Trump reviewed a plan in which Oracle, a cloud computing company that provides back-end technical support for TikTok, and about a dozen others, possibly including private equity firm Silver Lake, would pitch a joint offer to ByteDance. This deal would maintain Chinese ownership of TikTok’s algorithms while Oracle ensures the Chinese government couldn’t access American users’ data. Oracle chief technology officer Larry Ellison is a close ally of Trump and a billionaire Republican donor.

Andreessen Horowitz wants in with Oracle

Following the pattern of its transformative early investments in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Airbnb, Andreessen Horowitz wants to contribute an investment to buy out TikTok’s Chinese investors via Oracle’s bid. The venture capital firm invested $400 million into Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, now known as X.

AppLovin’s advertising advantage

Mirroring Amazon’s last-minute timing, AppLovin submitted a TikTok bid on Wednesday endorsed by billionaire casino magnate Steve Wynn. The mobile tech company, which aids developers on app marketing and advertising, uses AI-powered user data analytics to customise advertisements. If successful, it would build a new TikTok algorithm. AppLovin also vowed to the Trump administration to address TikTok’s national security concerns if the bid is approved. 

Blackstone is still evaluating

While private equity firm Blackstone hasn’t announced an individual bid, it’s evaluating a stake in TikTok. It would join a group of ByteDance’s non-Chinese shareholders led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic to bid on TikTok’s US operations, according to Reuters and The New York Times.

From OnlyFans to TikTok

The founder of online adult content site OnlyFans, Tim Stokely, submitted a bid through his social media startup company Zoop. It partnered with The Hbar Foundation, a cryptocurrency company, and aims to stray from traditional social media and catalyse a creator-first social media structure.

Other possible players

Since the announcement of a possible TikTok ban, Mr Beast, Perplexity AI, Project Liberty, Bobby Kotick, Doug McMillon, Microsoft and Rumble have reportedly submitted bids, proposed mergers or expressed interest in buying TikTok.