Until recently, it looked like the TikTok ban deadline wouldn’t be met. While President Trump claimed that there were four potential buyers of the app, he also hinted that there might be a deadline extension.
However, since then, things seem to have taken a turn for the better. On March 14, JD Vance told NBC News that a deal would “almost certainly” be done by April 5. He went on to say that this “high-level agreement satisfies [Americans’] national security concerns [and] allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise.”
While Vance didn’t go into details about buyers, he noted that the paperwork involved means that there might be an extension anyway. Still, he remained hopeful that they would meet the deadline. “We’re trying to close this thing by early April,” he said. “I think that the outlines of this thing will be very clear. The question is whether we can get all the paper done.”
Either way, he appeared confident that TikTok wouldn’t go “dark” again like it did on Jan. 19.
“I think whether it’s through an extension, or whether it’s through actually just getting the deal in place satisfies the national security concerns, I think we’re going to be in a place where we can say TikTok is operational, and it’s also operational in a way that’s protective of Americans’ data privacy and America’s national security,” he said.
Meanwhile, Politico has reported that the White House was “accelerating talks” with the cloud platform Oracle. This follows The Information’s report that Oracle was a favorite TikTok buyer,
However, don’t get too excited — ByteDance has stayed tight-lipped about its position on this deal. In the past, the company has reportedly “slow-rolled” potential deal talks. It’s also worth noting that the Chinese government has to approve the sale, so there are still plenty of hoops to jump through.
