Amazon submits last-minute bid to purchase TikTok ahead of US ban deadline

Amazon has bid to purchase TikTok in an eleventh-hour pitch as a US ban on the platform is set to go into effect Saturday. The Amazon offer was made in a letter to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. US President Donald Trump, on Inauguration Day, gave the platform a reprieve, barreling past a law that had been upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court in the US, which said the ban was necessary for national security.

Under the law, TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, must sell the platform to an approved buyer or take it offline in the US.