President Donald Trump said on January 28 that Microsoft is in discussions to acquire TikTok, marking the second time the technology giant has explored purchasing the popular Chinese-owned social media platform.

Speaking to reporters, Trump expressed interest in seeing a competitive bidding process for the app, which currently has approximately 170mn American users. The move to sell the app comes as both the new administration and the previous Biden administration made moves to wrestle ownership of the app away from its Chinese owners, where several congressmen and other officials have accused it of potentially being a security risk.  

The discussions come shortly after Trump signed an executive order delaying by 75 days the enforcement of a law requiring TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance to sell the platform or face a ban.

TikTok briefly went offline just before the original January 19 deadline for the divestment law, which was enacted due to national security concerns.

Trump, who returned to office on January 20, indicated he would likely make a decision on TikTok's future within 30 days, noting he has been in discussions with multiple potential buyers.

The President previously suggested Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a potential buyer, though Musk has not publicly responded to this proposition.

More recently, AI startup Perplexity AI proposed a merger with TikTok that would give the US government up to half of the resulting company's future ownership, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Microsoft's previous attempt to acquire TikTok in 2020 during Trump's first term ended unsuccessfully.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella later described those negotiations as "the strangest thing I've ever worked on," noting that the US government's requirements suddenly "disappeared" when Trump left office, Reuters reported.

Microsoft declined to comment on the current discussions, while TikTok and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.