Private equity firm Blackstone has pulled out of the investor consortium looking to buy TikTok’s US operation, Reuters reported Friday (July 18), citing a source familiar with the matter.

The withdrawal comes as TikTok’s presence in the US remains uncertain, with multiple deadline extensions on the divest-or-ban law.

Blackstone had reportedly been slated to take a minority stake in the platform’s US business alongside other consortium members.

Trump announced in late June that he had identified buyers for TikTok’s US operations, describing them as “a group of very wealthy people” during a Fox News interview. He suggested the deal would require approval from Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way. I think I’ll need probably China approval and I think President Xi [Jinping] will probably do it,” Trump said in the taped interview.

Bloomberg reported that Trump’s referenced buyers include the existing consortium of Oracle, Blackstone, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Those negotiations had previously stalled after Beijing withheld approval following Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods.

Reuters said the Blackstone consortium is led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic, both existing ByteDance shareholders.

Under the proposed structure of TikTok’s US deal, American investors would control 80% of the US operations while ByteDance will retain a minority stake.

The Blackstone consortium had reportedly negotiated a structure that would give outside investors 50% of TikTok’s US business while reducing ByteDance’s stake to below 20%.

The Trump administration favored the Blackstone consortium, which also includes KKR, for the deal, according to Reuters. While Oracle is expected to acquire a stake, Reuters reports that the involvement of other consortium bidders is still uncertain

A deal for TikTok US’s sale has faced repeated delays since Congress passed legislation in April 2024 requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok or shut down its US operations by January 19, 2025. President Donald Trump has since extended that deadline three times, with the current deadline set for September 17.

Reuters said the extensions have drawn criticism from some lawmakers who argue the Trump administration is “flouting the law” and downplaying national security risks associated with Chinese ownership of the platform.

ByteDance, which serves over 170 million users in the US, generated $43 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2025, surpassing Meta’s quarterly performance, according to Reuters.