Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for second time

President Donald Trump said he has decided to extend the deadline for Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd. to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations and give his administration more time to finalize a plan to keep the popular app running in the country. Trump said he will give Beijing-based ByteDance an additional 75 days to agree to a deal that would sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to an American buyer and avoid a ban that was set to take effect as soon as this weekend. “My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days,” the president said in a post on his Truth Social platform. More on TikTok Trump reiterated his desire for China to negotiate a sale, again suggesting that the U.S. could provide tariff relief in exchange for Beijing’s approval. “We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!),” Trump said in his post. “This proves that Tariffs are the most powerful Economic tool, and very important to our National Security! We do not want TikTok to ‘go dark.’ We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal.” Trump reviewed a proposal on Wednesday from a consortium of U.S. investors including Oracle Corp., Blackstone Inc. and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz that had emerged as a top contender to buy TikTok, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. Vice President JD Vance is spearheading the administration’s effort to find a buyer. This is the second time that Trump has extended ByteDance’s deadline to cut a deal. Under a law signed last year by President Joe Biden, ByteDance was required to sell TiKTok’s U.S. operations by Jan. 19, but didn’t finalize a deal. TikTok was then briefly taken offline—and removed from the Apple Inc. and Google app stores—but a more permanent shutdown was averted when Trump signed an executive order to delay enforcement. To help secure a deal, Trump has tapped a handful of senior administration officials to help vet potential buyers, putting the portfolio in the hands of Vance as well as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Under one potential arrangement, new outside investors would own 50% of TikTok’s U.S. business in a unit that would be spun off from ByteDance, according to sources familiar with the planning. ByteDance’s existing U.S. investors would also own about 30% of the business, cutting ByteDance’s stake to just below 20%, allowing it to meet the requirements of the U.S. security law. Administration officials recently circulated a proposal where Oracle would take a minority stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations and work with U.S. buyers to provide security assurances for user data. Under that plan, the app’s influential algorithm would remain with ByteDance, removing a potential obstacle to winning approval from the Chinese government. Critics of the proposal, though, argue that leaving the algorithm in Chinese hands would fail to comply with the divest-or-ban law and potentially allow China to access user information through a backdoor. Allowing ByteDance or China to retain control of the algorithm would do little to squash concerns that TikTok could be used to spread propaganda—claims that ByteDance and officials in Beijing have previously rejected. Oracle was Trump’s original choice to buy TikTok from ByteDance in 2020 as part of a consortium that also included Walmart Inc. That deal fell apart in the final months of his first term amid legal challenges by ByteDance and the widening Covid-19 pandemic. Amazon.com Inc. also submitted a bid to the White House in a letter to Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to a person familiar with the matter. That proposal, however, was not taken seriously by the administration, according to the person, who discussed the process on condition of anonymity. Other publicly known offers included one from a group led by billionaire Frank McCourt and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian; another featuring tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley and YouTube star MrBeast; a merger offer by San Francisco-based Perplexity AI; as well as a bid from AppLovin Corp. —Bloomberg News

Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for second time

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