Chinese firm ByteDance faces an April 5 deadline to sell social media platform TikTok or face a ban in the United States and last-minute bidders are clamoring for a shot to keep it available.

President Donald Trump previously attempted to ban TikTok during his first term, and has since pivoted to trying to save it. Under the Biden administration, Congress approved legislation to force the sale of the app in 2024 by attaching the TikTok bill to funding for Ukrainian military equipment and Israeli missile defense. Trump extended the deadline to April 5 and has reviewed multiple bids for the platform, including some that would offer the federal government a stake.

Wyoming-based billionaire Reid Rasner currently ranks as the highest bidder, floating a $47.45 billion purchase price, though ByteDance has yet to make a decision. James Stephen Donaldson aka “Mr. Beast” has become the face of another coalition that includes Employer.com CEO Jesse Tinsley. Project Liberty’s Frank McCourt has led a separate endeavor and roped in Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian for the effort.

The latest reported bids come from Amazon, AppLovin, and OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely, a content creation platform that has since become notorious for the abundance of explicit content. Amazon’s bid is reportedly not under consideration, according to The New York Times, which reported that unnamed sources say people involved in the talks do not appear to be taking Amazon’s bid seriously.

The app went dark in January, though Trump’s deadline extension led to its reactivation. Such a development could occur again should ByteDance decline to accept one of the bids. Thus far, Rasner appears to be the highest bidder, based on publicly available data.

The Wyoming billionaire’s bid may rank among the most appealing to the Trump administration, in part due to Rasner’s pledge to contribute 5% of the sale to the American sovereign wealth fund that Trump hopes to create. He has further floated a reform to the company’s data collection practices that would enable users to opt-in in exchange for a cut of the sale of their own data.

Paying users for their data

“As far as the data is concerned, people on Facebook, on Twitter and X, wherever you are, you're giving your data away for free. That happens no longer,” he said. “We are going to revolutionize social media, and it will never be the same again, because you're going to be able to opt-in to give us your data, and when you do that, you're going to receive a payment for us using your data.”

While the data sales component represents a unique component of Rasner’s bid. He isn’t the only group to float allowing the U.S. government to buy into TikTok. Reports emerged in January that Perplexity AI had proposed a merger that would permit the U.S. to claim a 50% stake.

With only two days remaining until the deadline, both ByteDance and the Trump administration face growing pressure to approve a bid, though they will likely participate in behind-the-scenes negotiations up to and possibly through the deadline. After the first outage ended, TikTok displayed a message to its users thanking Trump for his efforts to save the app. 

"We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive," TikTok said "It's a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States."

Should the company remain in operation, the Trump administration is sure to take credit for saving the app and a similar message may be forthcoming within the week.