U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday gave TikTok 75 more days to find a buyer before being banned in the United States. Trump’s executive order will keep TikTok online as his administration works to find a suitor to purchase the social network from its Chinese owner.
Trump announced on his Truth Social network that his administration has made “tremendous progress” on a deal to “save” TikTok, but more work is required.
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. 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.!). 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. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Offers have been made from companies like Oracle and Perplexity, as well as individuals such as Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary, Employer.com founder Jesse Tinsley, Jimmy Donaldson (also known as MrBeast), billionaire Frank McCourt, and others. Amazon also made an offer earlier this week.
The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act has been in effect since January 19, but Trump at the time ordered the Department of Justice not to enforce the law for a 75-day period. The window was set to expire on Saturday, April 5 if a deal had not been made to sell the app to an American company, but TikTok now has now been granted another two and a half month reprieve.
The law requires TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese company, and ByteDance was given nine months in which to do so. However, the company chose to appeal the ruling instead of searching for buyers. ByteDance argued the law was unconstitutional, as it violated the First Amendment. Supreme Court rejected that argument, saying that as a Chinese company, ByteDance does not have First Amendment rights.
ByteDance has repeatedly said it would not sell TikTok, as the code was quite complex and it would need to be uncoupled from ByteDance’s software tools. The Chinese government has opposed a sale, as the proprietary TikTok algorithm would need to be included in any sale.
