President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he had given the social media platform Tiktok another 90 days to find a non -Chinese buyer or that was prohibited in the United States.
“I just signed the executive order that extends the deadline for the closure of Tiktok for 90 days (September 17, 2025),” Trump published on his Truth social platform, postponing the prohibition for the third time.
A federal law that required the sale or prohibition of Tiktok in the national security reasons should enter into force the day before Trump’s opening of January.
The Republican, whose 2024 electoral campaign was largely based on social networks, has previously said that he likes the application to share videos.
“I have a small warm place in my heart for Tiktok,” Trump said in a NBC news Interview at the beginning of May. “If you need an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension.”
Tiktok on Thursday welcomed Trump’s decision.
“We appreciate the leadership and support of President Trump to ensure that Tiktok continues to be available for more than 170 million US users,” said a statement issued by the platform.
Digital Cold War?
Trump said in May that a group of buyers was ready to pay the owner of Tiktok Bytedance “a lot of money” for US operations of the sensation of video exchange.
Trump has repeatedly minimized the risks of Tiktok being in danger, saying that he continues to find a buyer for the application business in the United States.
The White House had announced on Monday that Trump would launch the very popular video exchange application, which has almost two billion global users, another lifeguard.
During this new period of grace, the Administration will work “to ensure that this agreement is closed so that the American people can continue using Tiktok with the assurance that their data is safe and safe,” said the administration in a statement.
The president “is simply not motivated to do anything about Tiktok,” said Independent Analyst Rob Enderle. “Unless they put aside, Tiktok will probably be in a very good shape.”
Trump had long supported a prohibition or divestment, but reversed his position and promised to defend the platform after coming to believe that he helped him win the support of young voters in the November elections.
Motivated by national security fears and belief in Washington that Tiktok is controlled by the Chinese government, the prohibition entered into force on January 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration, without trying not to find a suitor.
Tiktok “has become a symbol of technological rivalry between the United States and China; a point of inflammation in the new cold war for digital control,” said Shweta Singh, an assistant teacher of information systems at the Warwick Business School in Great Britain.
The president announced an initial delay of 75 days of the prohibition of assuming the position. A second extension took the deadline to June 19. Now the deadline is September 17.
Rate confusion
Trump said in April that China would have accepted an agreement on the sale of Tiktok if it weren’t for a dispute over its Beijing tariffs.
Bytedance has confirmed conversations with the United States government, saying that key issues should be resolved and that any agreement would be “subject to the approval of the Chinese law.”
According to reports, possible solutions include seeing American investors in Bytedance transmit their participations in a new independent Tiktok global company.
Additional investors in the United States would be presented, including Oracle and the private capital firm Blackstone, to reduce Bytedance participation in the new Tiktok.
Much of the American activity of Tiktok is already found on Oracle servers, and the president of the company, Larry Ellison, is a Trump ally for a long time.
Uncertainty remains, particularly about what would happen with the valuable Tiktok algorithm.
“Tiktok without his algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand, he is simply not so powerful,” said Forrester’s main analyst Kelsey Chickering.
Despite the agitation, Tiktok has continued with business as usual.
The platform presented on Monday a new set of generative artificial intelligence tools so that advertisers convert words or photos into video fragments for the platform.
