President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to divest its U.S. operations by 75 days, giving the company until 19 June 2025 to finalise a sale.
The extension comes as talks between ByteDance and potential buyers continue, with the aim of addressing national security concerns raised by the U.S. government.
In a statement, President Trump expressed satisfaction with the “tremendous progress” made during negotiations but emphasised that additional time was needed to reach a final agreement.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said, “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.”
Trump’s announcement comes amid a flurry of reports that potential buyers ranging from Andreessen Horowitz and Amazon (AMZN) to Walmart (WMT) and others are circling as they seek to snatch up the app and its 170 million US users.
“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.!),” Trump said.
“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!”
A federal law signed by former President Joe Biden in 2024 effectively bans TikTok if it remains under Chinese ownership. The initial law called for the app to permanently go offline on Jan. 20, but Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline by 75 days.
The US TikTok ban, which received overwhelming bipartisan support, required TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, to divest the short-form video app over US concerns that it posed a national security threat.
US officials have long argued that the Chinese government, which is designated as a US adversary, could gain access to Americans’ TikTok user data for nefarious purposes or use the platform to spread propaganda.
The US law banning TikTok forces web service providers to stop hosting the app and requires Apple and Google to pull it from their app stores.
TikTok took a challenge to the law all the way to the US Supreme Court, arguing that it infringed on the company’s First Amendment and other constitutional rights. A group of TikTok users made similar claims in a companion case, claiming they, too, had been deprived of constitutional protections.
But the high court ruled in favor of the government, reasoning that TikTok, as a foreign entity, wasn’t entitled to constitutional protections and that national security concerns outweighed the government’s restriction on TikTok use.
The court also said the law was limited in its infringement on free speech because social media users could access and post on other social media platforms.
