Amazon has made a formal offer to the White House to buy Chinese social media app TikTok.
According to reports, Amazon sent a letter to US Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Littnick this week, but it is not being taken seriously because the offer was submitted close to the deadline for a possible ban on TikTok in the US.
TikTok’s future in the US is uncertain, and if its owner, ByteDance, fails to sell its US operations by April 5, the app could be banned.
The deadline of January 19 last year was extended by 75 days by former President Donald Trump, and Trump is likely to make a decision on TikTok’s future on Wednesday.
TikTok’s more than 170 million US users and its growing ‘TikTok Shop’ platform are attractive to Amazon.
In August last year, the two companies reached an agreement that allowed users to shop from Amazon through TikTok, but this raised national security concerns.
