US President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a bidding war over the app.
Microsoft and TikTok did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for a comment outside regular business hours.
Trump has previously said that he was in discussions with several parties about purchasing TikTok and expects to make a decision on the app’s future within the next 30 days.
The app, which has about 170 million American users, was briefly taken offline just before a law requiring ByteDance to either sell it on national security grounds or face a ban took effect on Jan. 19.
Trump, after taking office on Jan. 20, signed an executive order seeking to delay by 75 days the enforcement of the law that was put in place after US officials warned that there was a risk of Americans’ data being misused under ByteDance.