TikTok ban yet again postponed for the third time and the app has been given another reprieve as efforts to sell the app continue with 90-day extension of President Donald Trump to continue operating in the US.
The president will sign an executive order extending TikTok’s deadline to sell off its US business, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed on Tuesday. Since Trump took office in January, there have been three extensions related to TikTok ban.
According to CNN, Leavitt said:
“President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark, as he has said many times.”
She also added that the administration will use the ninety days to try to reach an agreement that protects the data of American users.
No particular modifications have been reported since the latest extension in April, in spite of constant negotoations behind the scenes. Several US-based investors are allegedly interested in purchasing TikTok’s American assets, but Chinese officials would need to approve any deal.
Based on the previous reports, a single possible acquisition structure was for US investors to transfer their investments into a new company with their headquarters based in the US. But after the tariffs on Chinese goods were placed by Trump, those talks came to a standstill, making the process of striking a deal even more difficult.
The US government’s attempts to compel TikTok to sell its US operations are a result of long-standing worries about national security and data privacy. There has been pressure to either prohibit the app or take it under American supervision after ByteDance, the app’s Chinese parent firm, came under fire for its data handling policies.
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