By Aamer Madhani
WASHINGTON (AP) —Amazon has put in a bid to buy TikTok — an 11th hour pitch that comes as a U.S. ban on the platform is set to take effect Saturday, a Trump administration official said Wednesday.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the Amazon bid was made in an offer letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The New York Times first reported on the bid earlier Wednesday.
On Inauguration Day, Trump gave the platform a reprieve, barreling past a law that was passed by Congress and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court that said the ban was necessary for national security.
Under the law, TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance is required to sell the platform to an approved buyer or take it offline in the U.S.
Trump has suggested he could further extend the pause on the ban, but he has also said he expects a deal to be struck by Saturday.