U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday delayed enforcement of a country-wide ban on TikTok for a second time as talks to distance the popular video sharing app from its Chinese owners continue — reports CNBC.
The additional 75-day reprieve comes as the TikTok deal “requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. TikTok’s Chinese owners now have until mid-June to divest the app’s U.S. business.
The U.S. government last year passed a law targeting Chinese-owned apps, which required TikTok owner ByteDance to sell off TikTok or face a ban. ByteDance originally had until January 19 to put together a deal that would satisfy the law, but Trump extended the deadline by 75 days immediately after he took office. That order was set to expire on Saturday, April 5, necessitating another extension.
According to the latest reports, the Trump administration is considering a “TikTok America” plan that would save the app by having several private capital firms — such as Andreessen Horowitz, Blackstone, and Silver Lake — buy out roughly half of its U.S. operations. Tech giant Oracle, meanwhile, would sign on to handle U.S. users’ data.
“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 Truth Social post.
Any deal would require ByteDance, and likely the Chinese government, to sign off. “An agreement has not been executed,” a spokesperson for ByteDance said in a statement. “There are key matters to be resolved.”
One point of contention between the two parties remains ownership of TikTok’s proprietary video recommendation algorithm. The Chinese government reportedly wants the algorithm to remain ByteDance’s property, with TikTok’s new U.S. owners licensing it.
In addition to the “TikTok America” plan, several other options are on the table. Trump previously floated the idea of the U.S. government owning a stake in the app, and parties such as AppLovin, billionaire Frank McCourt, and startup Perplexity have also expressed interest in acquiring TikTok’s U.S. business. Tech giant Amazon this week also submitted a last-minute bid for TikTok.
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Trump's actions are all strategic ie. a negotiation tactic. Some are impulsive but always full of rhetoric. Only post what he actually does — after he does it, not what he says he will do.
Rather than passing privacy laws that will stop everyone from collecting personal and sensitive information, just find a sitting where only American companies can collect that personal information and not Chinese. Wonderful