President Donald Trump is signing an executive order authorizing another extension to save TikTok from a ban set to take effect on Thursday.
The president has often spoken highly of the Chinese-owned popular social media platform due to its wealth of young people, a voting bloc that boosted his reelection bid last year.
While the app technically was set to go dark Thursday, the White House confirmed on Tuesday that Trump is extending the June 19 deadline again, allowing for 90 more days to broker a TikTok sale.
“As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement verifying the new mid-September deadline. “This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.”
Her words come after Trump revealed last month he would extend the deadline for the third time.
“I’d like to see it done,” Trump said during an NBC News interview in May. “It’ll be protected. It’ll be very strongly protected. But if it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension.”
The app, owned by China’s ByteDance, boasts roughly 170 million monthly active users across the country but originally faced extinction on April 5 if it failed to sell operations to a U.S. buyer. However, Trump granted the app a 75-day extension just before the April deadline after saying on March 30 that he’d like “to see TikTok remain alive,” adding that “a lot of potential buyers” are interested in the platform.
The president’s remarks on the matter came after he signed an executive order on Jan. 20 giving the app an initial 75-day lifeline before the ban was implemented, putting the platform’s long-term future in limbo.
Here’s everything you need to know about the challenges and opportunities TikTok is facing.
The latest on the deal
The White House favors a deal that would grant the government a 50% stake in TikTok.
Details on the deal are scant. Under the latest rumored takeover proposal, more than a dozen possible investors, including Blackstone, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, and Oracle, which already holds a stake in TikTok, would take an ownership stake in a U.S.-operated TikTok. The deal would leave ByteDance with less than a 20% stake in the spinoff, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.
“I think the U.S. should get half of TikTok…. I think we would have a joint venture,” Trump said on Inauguration Day. “I may not or may do the deal. TikTok is worthless, worthless, if I don’t approve it. I learned that from the people who own it. If I don’t do the deal, it’s worth nothing; if I do the deal, it’s worth a trillion dollars.”
As the clock ticked down to the second April deadline, Trump said in late March that his administration had seen “tremendous interest in TikTok” from U.S. buyers.
“We have a lot of people that want to buy TikTok. We’re dealing with China also on it because they may have something to do with it,” the president told reporters on Air Force One. “I’d like to see TikTok remain alive.”
At the time, House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) added that it was “clear” that “any deal that allows ByteDance to maintain control of TikTok is a grave threat to our security and a violation of U.S. law.”
“ByteDance is trying to hold on to TikTok by pushing a licensing deal and maintaining control over its algorithm and staff,” he said during an event hosted by the TikTok Coalition.
There have been concerns that the proposed deal retaining ties to Oracle would allow ByteDance to keep controlling TikTok’s algorithm or otherwise illegally exercise influence. Allowing Oracle to acquire the app could violate the law demanding TikTok completely divest from Chinese influence. Republicans who are opposed to a deal involving Oracle include Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), according to the New York Post.
The president suggested earlier this year that he might reduce massive tariffs against China to get a TikTok divestment deal across the finish line.
However, the United States has since rolled back the bulk of the tariffs after reaching a new trade deal with China, making Beijing likely more amenable to negotiating on ByteDance.
How did we get to a ban?
Due to national security concerns, former President Joe Biden signed legislation into law last year that banned TikTok unless it was sold to a U.S. company. ByteDance initially refused to consider selling operations to a U.S. owner.
After TikTok appealed the ban, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in early January upholding the law. The ban went into effect as Trump prepared to take office in January.
With Trump’s Day One executive order, and two additional extensions, the company and the Trump administration now have an interim period until early Thursday, June 19, to hammer out a deal that satisfies both parties.
While most of the president’s Day One executive orders were popular among his base and with Republicans in Congress, his staunch allies who made their names as China hawks have balked at his decision to try to undercut the bipartisan law.
“The law was enacted to address the very real national security risks posed by TikTok’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” Cotton and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said in a joint statement criticizing the order. “Delaying its enforcement is a reckless abdication of responsibility.”
US buyers for TikTok
Several prominent businessmen have been mentioned in connection with acquiring TikTok. Among them are two prominent figures in Trump’s orbit: X founder Elon Musk and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, both of whom Trump has given his blessing to take over the app.
Neither Ellison nor Musk has publicly expressed interest in buying TikTok. Musk said in February that he had no plans to acquire the platform.
Several other possible buyers have also come forward with proposals.
Project Liberty founder Frank McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary announced a $20 billion bid for TikTok in early January.
However, O’Leary has expressed concern that some of Trump’s ideas for a deal are inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The pair has continued to negotiate a possible deal with the Trump administration, according to their comments on CNBC.
Media personality MrBeast has also thrown in a bid for TikTok. Along with a group of wealthy investors, MrBeast said they “have an offer ready for you; we want to buy the platform” in a video posted on TikTok.
Concerns about the app
One of the primary reasons TikTok was outlawed in 2024 was that many lawmakers were concerned about the platform’s ties to the CCP. Because the Chinese government has a controlling “Golden Share” in the app, critics believed it gave an adversarial government dangerous leverage to use TikTok to spy on millions of U.S. users, many of whom are minors. On the basis of such claims, China has been accused of posing a national security threat to the U.S.
In recent months, Trump has pushed back against those concerns, arguing that the U.S. should focus on addressing much “bigger problems” posed by China than the social media app.
“If China is going to get information about young kids out of it, to be honest, I think we have bigger problems than that. But you know, when you take a look at telephones that are made in China and all the other things that are made in China, military equipment made in China, TikTok, I think TikTok is not their biggest problem,” he told reporters on March 31.
Other critics have argued that the app’s algorithm was designed to threaten the health and mental well-being of young people, many of whom spend countless hours on the social media platform.
Support for TikTok
The primary basis of support for opposing a ban on TikTok has centered on concerns that it represents a “ban” on speech.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has argued that outlawing his app in the U.S. would violate freedom of speech. His concerns have been echoed by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) both saying a TikTok ban is unconstitutional, citing First Amendment rights.
“They tell you this is about China. About security. About safety. That’s a lie. This is about control. About fear. About silencing you. A government that can ban an app can ban a book. A government that can silence a platform can silence a person. Today, it’s TikTok. Tomorrow, it’s your news. Next week, it’s your voice,” Paul warned in a recent press release.
Other Republican critics of a ban, led by Trump, say the app should be kept because it has helped the GOP reach young voters.
The president went so far as to suggest in April that he might download TikTok to his phone.
“I think I’ll get it right now. By the way, again, we won the young vote. I think I won it through TikTok, so I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” he said.
Lawmakers flip their stance
Before his push to save TikTok, Trump signed an executive order to ban it during his first term. The ban cited national security concerns, which were challenged in court.
Biden also shifted on the app. In 2021, he revoked Trump’s TikTok executive order before signing legislation in 2024 that put the current ban in place. Days before he left office, he announced that he would not do anything to enforce the ban as the divestment deadline loomed in a final reversal, winding up at his original position.
Other key members of Trump’s administration, including national security adviser Mike Waltz, have become enthusiastic about making a deal to preserve the app after previously backing efforts to ban it.
PERPLEXITY AI MAKES BID FOR TIKTOK AS ORACLE EMERGES AS FRONTRUNNER
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who voted to ban TikTok last year, has likewise backpedaled opposition to the platform.
“We know a lot of things are up in the air, with the TikTok ban scheduled to go into effect this weekend,” he said in March. “But everyone — the Biden administration, the incoming Trump administration, even the Supreme Court — should continue working to find a way [to get] an American buyer for TikTok, so we can both free the app from any influence and control from the Chinese Communist Party and keep TikTok going, which will preserve the jobs of millions of creators.”
