The Chinese-origin short video sharing platform currently has about 170 million users in the US, with a total online time of 4.43 billion minutes in 2023 - according to data from eMarketer .

Analysis by Kepios (the world's online user tracking organization) shows that TikTok covers 53.9% of adults in the US, while according to eMarketer , 45.3% of social network users in general here use TikTok at least once a month.

The six-month deadline set by the “Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Hostile Nations Act” for ByteDance to divest completely has been deemed unrealistic – as the tech giant would need approval from China – which has previously stated its opposition to such a “forced sale”.

However, several high-profile investors have expressed interest in acquiring the popular social networking platform.

Former US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin

Steve Mnuchin, an investment banker who served as US Treasury Secretary under Donald Trump, is assembling a group of potential investors to buy TikTok.

“I think the bill will pass and TikTok will be sold,” Mnuchin told CNBC. “This company should be owned by an American company. The Chinese will never let an American company run a platform like this in China.” The former Washington official added that the app needs to be “remade” with American technology.

Rumble

Rumble is a video streaming platform popular with conservatives. CEO Chris Pavlovski said the company reached out to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and asked them to “join other groups looking to acquire the app and operate the platform within the United States.” It was not immediately clear who the “other parties” were referring to.

In January, Wired reported that Rumble was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. At the time, a company representative said that they had voluntarily provided documents to authorities and that people should not draw wrong conclusions.

By February, Pavlovski posted a letter saying the SEC investigation was over and no enforcement order had been issued.

Former CEO Activision Blizzard

Bobby Kotick stepped down from his role as head of gaming giant Activision Blizzard in December. According to the WSJ, he was looking for a partner to buy TikTok and expressed his intention to ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yimming and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Kotick declined to comment on the reports.

"Shark" Kevin O'Leary

“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O'Leary asserted in an interview with Fox News that TikTok “will not be banned, because I will buy the platform.”

On his TikTok account, O'Leary said that Meta and Google would not be involved in the deal due to regulatory concerns.

According to this “shark”, Chinese investors can keep 20% of the shares of the new company, but the CEO will be an American and the servers will be located in the US. Currently, TikTok US user data is stored in Austin, Oracle's cloud computing facility.

Microsoft

In 2020, when the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok, the software giant said it was “committed to acquiring TikTok in a manner that fully complies with a security review and provides appropriate economic benefits to the United States.” NBC News reported at the time that Microsoft would also acquire TikTok’s operations in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as part of the deal.

However, the proposal fell through after Oracle was chosen to oversee TikTok’s operations and user data in the US, while ByteDance retained majority ownership of the video-sharing platform. Walmart and Oracle later offered to invest in TikTok, but discussions stalled after the Biden administration took over.

Why the US Might Fail to Ban TikTok Completely Even if the bill targeting TikTok passes the Senate and President Biden signs it into law, the process of enforcing the rules will be far from straightforward.