Amazon had a relationship with TikTok well before TikTok's future was on the line, but their latest partnership has taken on new significance.

Asthe January deadline approaches for TikTok to be sold to an American firm or face a nationwide ban, the Chinese-owned social media giant is quietly deepening its ties to a major company that is central to Americans’ daily life, and one of its biggest rivals: Amazon. It’s a strategic move that will make it harder to shut down TikTok here, industry insiders told Forbes.

Some believe it’s a sign that Amazon is on the table as a possible buyer. “The writing is on the wall,” said Roee Zelcer, who until recently was TikTok’s head of sales for products and services for more than three years. (He left in April to become the U.S. CEO of Humanz, a global creator marketing platform that connects influencers with brands like Google, L’Oréal and ​​Procter & Gamble.)

And even if that acquisition doesn’t come to pass, Amazon’s cozy relationship with and growing reliance on TikTok will likely make the chorus of voices fighting a ban even louder. “Now it's not just small businesses and influencers being enraged on this ban—but it's also Amazon,” Zelcer told Forbes. “It's a big buy-in on TikTok’s side. It's a very strategic move to deepen their relationship in the U.S. economy.” TikTok declined to comment. Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti said the company does not comment on mergers and acquisitions or on speculation.

Oral arguments begin next week in the high stakes legal fight between the U.S. government and TikTok that could lead to this country barring a foreign-owned social media app for the first time ever. In April, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill forcing TikTok’s China-based parent ByteDance to divest its crown jewel to an American company over national security concerns or face a shutdown early next year. In May, TikTok and ByteDance filed a lawsuit challenging that law, calling it unconstitutional and a thinly veiled attempt to simply ban the wildly popular platform, while a group of TikTok creators filed their own suit........

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