President Donald Trump on Friday (April 4) said that he is signing an executive order to keep TikTok running in the US for another 75 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership. Congress had mandated that the platform be divested from China by January 19 or barred in the United States on national security grounds, but Trump moved unilaterally to extend the deadline to this weekend, as he sought to negotiate an agreement to keep it running.
Trump has recently entertained an array of offers from US businesses seeking to buy a share of the popular social media site, but China's ByteDance, which owns TikTok and its closely-held algorithm, has insisted the platform is not for sale.
“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump posted on his social media platform. “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 added: “We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal.”
TikTok, which has headquarters in Singapore and Los Angeles, has said it prioritises user safety, and China's Foreign Ministry has said China's government has never and will not ask companies to “collect or provide data, information or intelligence” held in foreign countries.
Amazon's last-minute bid for TikTok
Earlier, Amazon has put in a bid to purchase TikTok, a Trump administration official said on April 2, in an eleventh-hour pitch as a US ban on the platform is set to go into effect Saturday. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Amazon offer was made in a letter to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day gave the platform a reprieve, barreling past a law that had been upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court, which said the ban was necessary for national security. Under the law, TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance is required to sell the platform to an approved buyer or take it offline in the United States. Trump has suggested he could further extend the pause on the ban, but he has also said he expects a deal to be forged by Saturday.
Amazon declined to comment.TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The existence of an Amazon bid surfaced as Trump was scheduled on Wednesday to meet with senior officials to discuss the coming deadline for a TikTok sale.
Although it's unclear if ByteDance plans to sell TikTok, several possible bidders have come forward in the past few months. Among the possible investors are the software company Oracle and the investment firm Blackstone. Oracle announced in 2020 that it had a 12.5 per cent stake in TikTok Global after securing its business as the app's cloud technology provider.