President Donald Trump has again extended the deadline for a law requiring TikTok's China-based owner to sell the popular short-video app. A Saturday cutoff for the TikTok ban had launched a scramble of reports about new bidders for the app this week, including interest from Amazon and AppLovin.
"My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress," Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns. "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."
TikTok is available for American users under a temporary reprieve from a 2024 law that bans the short-video app unless its parent company ByteDance divests ownership. Trump delayed enforcement of the ban for 75 days on his first day in office, Jan. 20, allowing TikTok to restart operations for its more than 170 million U.S. users after a brief shutdown.
"We do not want TikTok to 'go dark,'" Trump wrote. "We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal."
TikTok Ban: U.S. Investor Group, Amazon Show Interest
Trump was briefed this week on a plan dubbed "TikTok America." The proposal would bring new American investors in and dilute ByteDance's ownership of TikTok in the U.S. to below 20%, according to reports in The Information and Financial Times.
The investor list includes Andreessen Horowitz, Blackstone, Silver Lake and other large private capital firms. The new group would join with existing U.S. investors, per the reports. Oracle, meanwhile, would secure TikTok's U.S. user data.
That plan is considered the front-runner, according to the Financial Times. However, there were a couple surprise bids ahead of the now-delayed Saturday deadline.
Amazon launched a last-minute offer, the New York Times reported Wednesday. However, the parties involved in TikTok's negotiations "do not appear to be taking Amazon's bid seriously," the report said, citing unnamed sources.
AppLovin confirmed in an investor filing Thursday that it was interested in making an offer, following press reports that the mobile advertising technology company planned to bid for TikTok.
Of course, any plan will require ByteDance agreeing to sell. It would also likely require approval from the Chinese government. Some analysts see TikTok as a bargaining chip in a trade war between China and the U.S.
Trump added in the Truth Social post that his administration hopes to continue working with China "who I understand are not very happy about our reciprocal tariffs."
