Amazon makes last-minute bid to acquire TikTok

Amazon made a last-minute bid to acquire TikTok, as revealed by The New York Times. The proposal comes just three days before the Chinese social network will be banned nationwide if it does not change ownership.

The Trump administration extended the ultimatum of his predecessor, who had set the deadline in January, until April 5. The president assured that he would like "Tiktok to remain alive" and that there are "a lot of potential buyers." At the moment, however, no deal has been announced.

With the NYT information, Amazon adds its name to a parade of names ranging from influencers like Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) to technology company Oracle to Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary to entrepreneur Frank McCourt.

According to sources consulted by the New York newspaper, the company owned by Jeff Bezos made the offer by means of a letter to the vice president, JD Vance, and the secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. However, the same ones questioned the seriousness of the proposal.

Amazon has not issued any statements. In February of this year the company terminated Inspire, a video application that emulated TikTok. Although it reached agreements with other companies' video platforms to offer its retail services, such as with Instagram and Snap, the acquisition of TikTok would represent a further step in the integration of its sales website with a social network.

TikTok's future has been on hold since the previous Congress passed a law to force its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform to an American company. The lawmakers behind the ban cited security concerns, questioning the access the Chinese Communist Party might have to sensitive user data stored in China.

In response, the company shut down its entire service and publicly appealed to then President-elect Trump, who agreed to postpone the veto. After that, the social network re-enabled its services to old and new users.

ByteDance refused to sell its flagship product internationally, which in the United States alone has more than 170 million users. For his part, Trump will meet Wednesday with his team to discuss potential investors, according to the AP reports.