The TikTok “ban or sell” deadline has once again been extended, with no sign of a deal anytime soon.
As previously reported by The Information, a deal was within touching distance. The planned deal reportedly included the launch of a separate company called TikTok America. This company would have been 50% owned by new US investors, with the infamous algorithm being directly leased from ByteDance.
ByteDance would have had a 19.99% stake in the business. The cloud-based platform Oracle, which works with TikTok on Project Texas, was also poised to play a significant role.
Those deals never came to pass, and President Trump announced on Friday that he was issuing another extension.
What Did Trump Say About Pushing Back The TikTok Ban Again?
“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” he wrote on Truth Social. “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.”
He added that China was “not very happy” about the sky-high tariffs issued to the country. Indeed, an anonymous source told Reuters that talks of a deal were stalled as a result of the tariff rise.
On Sunday, Trump confirmed this to be the case. Speaking to journalists aboard Air Force One, he said: “We had a deal pretty much for TikTok — not a deal but pretty close — and then China changed the deal because of tariffs. If I gave a little cut in tariffs they would have approved that deal in 15 minutes, which shows the power of tariffs.”
