Twitter is apparently interested in buying TikTok, too

The race to buy the U.S. side of TikTok before the app is banned in the states has an interesting new competitor: Twitter.

Reuters reported on Saturday that the popular microblogging platform has spoken to TikTok's parent company ByteDance about a possible sale. ByteDance has 43 days to agree to sell the U.S. arm of its massive video creation and sharing app before president Donald Trump's recent executive order banning its use in the U.S. kicks in.

Twitter declined to comment on the report.

The problem for Twitter, according to Reuters, will be money. Without getting too in the weeds, Twitter is not worth nearly as much as Microsoft, the prohibitive favorite to acquire the stateside operations of TikTok at the moment. If Twitter wants to outbid the company behind Windows, Office, and Xbox, it needs to shore up support from financial partners before the Sept. 15 deadline.

One thing to note is that the executive order and potential sale are by no means set in stone. TikTok reportedly plans on taking the White House to court over it.

Reuters named private equity firm Silver Lake as one potential partner that could help Twitter seal the deal. Finances aside, Twitter acquiring TikTok would make sense in the same way that it made sense for Twitter to buy Vine back in 2012. TikTok videos embed naturally into tweets and anyone who uses Twitter on a regular basis probably sees several TikToks in their feed every day.

Of course, we all remember how Twitter bought Vine and then unceremoniously killed it a few years later. Vine's founder later publicly regretted the deal. If someone does buy the American wing of TikTok, let's hope the eventual outcome is a little better.

UPDATE: Aug. 9, 2020, 11:55 a.m. EDT Added a decline to comment from Twitter.