Former President Trump considers extending TikTok’s June 19 divestment deadline as Amazon revises its bid and U.S. regulators weigh antitrust concerns.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump signaled willingness to extend TikTok’s June 19 divestment deadline during a May 4 NBC interview, citing progress in negotiations for a U.S.-led ownership structure. The potential deal faces new complexity as Amazon increases its bid to $75 billion while the Department of Justice opens an antitrust review of the acquisition.
Deadline Extension Contingent on Progress
The Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) granted conditional approval on June 11 for a proposal granting U.S. investors 55% control of TikTok’s operations. A Trump campaign adviser told Reuters the extension would require “verifiable safeguards” for user data through Oracle-Walmart consortium oversight of TikTok’s algorithms.
Amazon’s Revised Bid and Antitrust Hurdles
Amazon submitted a $75 billion offer on June 12, including $15 billion for data localization infrastructure, according to SEC filings. The bid faces scrutiny from the DOJ’s antitrust division, which launched a probe on June 13 into whether the acquisition would expand Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce and cloud services, per Wall Street Journal sources.
CFIUS Approves Provisional Security Framework
Bloomberg reported June 11 that CFIUS endorsed a security agreement requiring weekly audits of TikTok’s recommendation algorithms by U.S.-based engineers. This follows Senate Intelligence Subcommittee hearings on June 14 examining potential loopholes in current data governance proposals.
Historical Precedents in U.S.-China Tech Standoffs
The TikTok dispute mirrors previous tech sector conflicts, including the 2020 Huawei sanctions and the forced sale of Grindr’s Chinese ownership in 2019. Analysts note this marks the first instance of algorithmic oversight being mandated in a cross-border tech deal. In 2022, the Biden administration blocked a Chinese consortium’s attempt to acquire Magnachip Semiconductor over similar national security concerns.
Antitrust challenges to major tech acquisitions have intensified since the FTC sued to block Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition in 2023. Amazon itself faced congressional scrutiny in 2021 for allegedly using third-party seller data to boost its private-label products, a practice it denied under oath.
