German publisher Axel Springer floats the possibility of buying the European arm of TikTok operations to US officials.
Mathias Dopfner, co-founder of Axel Springer, has proposed his company be part of a deal to buy TikTok’s European operations.
This idea was floated by high-ranking members of the US administration in January, according to the Financial Times.
The proposal was reportedly then communicated to EU Commission officials, but did not gain further momentum.
Axel Springer is a German publishing company which owns the Daily Telegraph and Politico, as well as Awin, one if the largest affiliate marketing networks. The purchase of TikTok would be the first diversification into the social media sector for the publisher.
Awin connects as many as 30,000 advertisers to over a million publishers, creators, influencers, and affiliate partners globally. Having a social media platform like TikTok under its wing could have helped the company expand this side of its businesses.
Dopfner proposed the purchase deal during a lunch with US ambassador to France, Charles Kushner – father of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The proposed deal would be similar to the purchase of the US arm of TikTok by American firms including Larry Ellison’s Oracle, alongside Silver Lake, and MGX – brokered by Donald Trump.
The proposition from Axel Springer outlines the firm’s ambition to align itself with the Trump administration, having invited Charles Kushner to its German headquarters.
TikTok has over 200 million monthly users across Europe, with TikTok’s e-commerce ecosystem established as one of the most popular marketplaces, especially in the UK.
Over 300,000 UK small-to-medium businesses are registered as sellers on the platform, according to ECDB research, with gross merchandise value (GMV) expected to hit almost €5bn in 2026.
The rest of the European market lags behind, with the second most successful market, Spain, projected to reach just over €1bn in the same timeframe.
