Who could buy TikTok?

President Joe Biden signed a bill into law on Wednesday that would ban TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells the popular social media app.

Now the question is, who could buy it?

Several potential US buyers are already exploring the idea of purchasing the app, which boasts 170 million US users.

Leading the pack is former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who announced last month that he is looking into buying the popular video app, CNN reported.

“It's a great business and I'm going to put together a group to buy TikTok,” Mnuchin told CNBC.

Mr Mnuchin, who initially led the Trump administration’s effort to ban TikTok, has reportedly suggested a deal that excludes the app’s algorithm, which is seen as an important asset to the app; however, such a deal could get around a Chinese government export restrictions on recommendation algorithms.

It would be a “disgrace if [Mnuchin] was allowed to turn around and use that classified information to further enrich himself and his Saudi buddies,” Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden told The Washington Post last month.

The multi-million dollar purchase could also turn Mr Mnuchin into a rival to his former boss, Donald Trump, who is the chairman and leading shareholder of the company that owns Truth Social.

Kevin O’Leary, the Canadian chairman of the private venture capital firm O’Leary Ventures, has also expressed interest and like Mr Mnuchin, has said that a potential acquisition of TikTok may have to exclude TikTok’s algorithm. He has suggested an opening bid between $20bn and $30bn.

The ban has already happened elsewhere. Billions of people live in countries where TikTok is unavailable in one form or another.

But there is still a long time before any possible TikTok ban might go into effect.

Under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has nine months to sell the social media app, tacking on an additional three more if a sale is under way.

Some analysts say that it’s unlikely for another social media platform to take it over, because this would immediately trigger antitrust red flags.

Meta is fighting a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that alleges its purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram violated US antitrust law, and the FTC is actively seeking to break up the company, CNN reported, and experts say the company would be a poor candidate to buy TikTok.

“If it’s Amazon, Microsoft, Google or Meta, I just think you’re going to see substantial antitrust concern,” Gene Kimmelman, a former Justice Department antitrust official, told CNN. “If you were to say, like, an Intel, or a Cisco, maybe Oracle, I don’t know. If you were to tell me it’s Verizon, or AT&T, maybe it’s not as big of a problem.”

Microsoft, which was a contender to buy TikTok when former President Trump pushed it back in 2020, could be back to strike a deal this time around.

This is despite the antitrust scrutiny it attracted when it sought to buy the video game publisher Activision Blizzard in one of the largest tech mergers in history, CNN reported. The company ultimately won the FTC lawsuit.

Walmart and Oracle are other potential suitors.

Despite fears that the app will suddenly disappear from users’ phones if the ban takes effect, this isn’t the case.

In reality, the app would be no longer accessible in the app stores in the US, meaning it would become more difficult to download the app or receive updates.

So, while users could continue to use it in the short term, it eventually may become incompatible with their phone’s software.

Creators and small business owners have warned that a ban of the app could impact their livelihoods. Over seven million US businesses sell products on the platform, The Washington Post reported.

In India, which was a leader in banning TikTok, the app was taken down from the Google and Apple app stores in the country, and it was no longer available.

Instagram Reels rushed in to fill the gap. The then brand new app – which borrows some of the same formats from TikTok, including its musical soundtracks and its easily scrollable feed – quickly took in users that could no longer use the original app.