President Trump said Friday he is signing an executive order to extend the deadline for TikTok to be sold to an American company by 75 days.
He wrote on Truth Social that his administration “has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress.”
He said the “deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed.”
“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.!),” he wrote.
“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!”
The deadline for TikTok to be sold was April 5, after the president had previously extended it 75 days from its original January deadline.
The app, owned by ByteDance, was originally to be banned in the U.S. on Jan. 19 if it wasn’t sold to an American company. President Biden signed a law mandating its sale last April out of national security fears about the Chinese-owned app.
On his first day in office, Mr. Trump extended the deadline to sell TikTok by 75 days. TikTok CEO Shou Chew, who attended Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, publicly thanked the president for saving the app in the U.S.
Mr. Trump, who once advocated banning TikTok to protect national security, appeared to change his tune after receiving the votes of the young voters — the biggest demographic on the app.
Vice President J.D. Vance and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz were tapped to oversee a potential deal to save TikTok. On Thursday, Mr. Vance voiced optimism about a sale before the deadline.
“I don’t want to get ahead of any presidential announcements here, but … we’ve been working very hard, me and the president, the entire team, to really accomplish two things,” Mr. Vance said on “Fox & Friends.” “First of all, you want to make sure that the TikTok app in the United States is not spying on people. It’s good for national security. You also want to give people access to this incredible platform which as we know that’s where a lot of young people get their news, that’s where a lot of young people found out about the policies of the Trump administration.”
He said they “got to accomplish both of those things.”
“I think that we’re in a good place. We’re going to keep on working at it, but I’ll let the president make that announcement,” he said, adding that “it’ll come out before the deadline.”
In his Truth Social post, Mr. Trump made no indication of who or what company has said they will buy TikTok or if China is on board with a sale.
Some big-name companies, including Oracle, Amazon, Blackstone and Walmart, have considered throwing their hats in the ring for TikTok ownership. The next-generation business development firm Hbar Foundation and production and marking start-up Zoop also confirmed that they made a plan to buy the app.
Other potential buyers included billionaire businessman Frank McCourt, who saw Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian team up with him for the idea, among others.
