20 hours Ago By Varun Godinho
Amazon has bid to purchase TikTok ahead of the April 5 deadline set by the Trump administration to sell or shut down the social media platform, according to a report in the New York Times. Amazon’s last-minute bid came via an offer letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick. However, Amazon’s bid is not beleived to be the strongest one.
There have been other big names joining the bidding process including mobile technology company AppLovin which has potentially got casino tycoon Steve Wynn to back its bid. AppLovin is reported to have a powerful artificial intelligence capability that can collect data on app users and tailor ads. It has a market cap of around A$160 billion.
The Trump administration has reportedly talked to several US investors including Blackrock and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz too about making a bid to acquire TikTok. Media reports have indicated that Oracle too has expressed interest and would join existing US investors to make an offer to TikTok-owner ByteDance. Private-equity firms Silver Lake and Blackstone are believed to be among the investors that will potentially participate in the deal.
The decision to acquire TikTok comes amid US national security concerns of removing Chinese influence over the app, which is used by over 170 million Americans. TikTok’s 2024 global revenue was $36bn, with the US market accounting for about a third (around A$18.6bn).
As of data that was last made available in 2023, there are reportedly 8.5 million Australians active on TikTok. There are also around 350,000 Aussie businesses on the platform.
.
