In an eleventh-hour effort to prevent a U.S. ban on TikTok, Amazon has submitted a bid to acquire the platform, according to a Trump administration official speaking on Wednesday. The bid, sent in a letter to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, was reported by The New York Times.

Following a Supreme Court ruling upholding a law for national security reasons, President Donald Trump initially allowed TikTok to continue. However, under the legislation, ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, must sell the platform to an approved buyer or cease its operations in the U.S. Trump has hinted at the possibility of extending the ban pause, but anticipates a resolution by the approaching deadline on Saturday.

Though Amazon has not commented on the bid, reports of it emerged as Trump planned to discuss the impending TikTok sale deadline with senior officials. Concerns have been raised by the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission over potential sharing of user data with the Chinese government by ByteDance. TikTok has denied such actions and no evidence has been presented by the U.S. government to support these claims. Trump, who has a significant TikTok following, previously took a firm stance against the platform during his first term, issuing executive orders to prohibit transactions with ByteDance and WeChat, a Chinese messaging app.