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The online retail giant's push to buy the popular video app was first reported by the New York Times on Wednesday, April 2. The proposal comes as TikTok faces a potential ban unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance finds a US-based buyer by Saturday, April 5.
The offer was sent in a letter addressed to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a person briefed on the matter told the Times. Sources involved in the negotiations say the new bid isn't being taken seriously, according to the Times.
TikTok has 170 million users in the US and a long-standing e-commerce relationship with Amazon. The tech giant even tried to launch a similar video-shopping feature called Inspire, which was quietly shut down in February.
TikTok's legal future remains uncertain.
The platform briefly went dark in the US on Sunday, Jan. 19, after the Supreme Court upheld a federal divest-or-ban law. While TikTok was quickly restored, it remained missing from app stores until Thursday, Feb. 13, when Apple and Google relisted it.
An executive order signed by President Donald Trump – who once advocated for banning TikTok – delayed enforcement of the ban until April 5. The extension has given ByteDance more time to potentially find a US-based buyer.
What TikTok might actually cost also remains unclear.
Frank McCourt, the billionaire behind Project Liberty's "The People's Bid," estimated that TikTok could be worth $20 billion, Forbes reported. The bid has been joined by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Kevin O'Leary, a Canadian businessman widely known from the TV show "Shark Tank".
McCourt's $20 billion valuation of TikTok is without the powerful recommendation algorithm that drives the app's content, which ByteDance has shown no interest in selling. If the algorithm is added, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Forbes that even a $300 billion valuation of TikTok "could be conservative."
TikTok's value is also hard to establish because it's technically a subsidiary of shell companies based in the Cayman Islands, making it difficult to track the app's US revenue and profit. China's government also owns a small but influential stake in one of ByteDance's other businesses and would need to approve any sale.
Amazon hasn't commented on the New York Times report as of press time.
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