Creators have been waiting with bated breath for TikTok to sort itself out. But now, we might be further from a solution than ever. On March 6, Donald Trump indicated that he might issue another TikTok ban extension to the “buy or sell” law.
“We have a lot of interest in TikTok. China is going to play a role, so hopefully, China will approve of the deal,” he said while speaking to the media inside the Oval Office. “But they’re going to play a role.”
Trump initially issued an executive order on Jan. 20, a day after TikTok went dark. He issued the order to get the app back online. Specifically, by issuing this executive order, Trump was able to give TikTok a 75-day reprieve, making April 5 the new date for the ban to be implemented. When asked if he would end up extending the reprieve, he said: “probably, yeah.” He then went on to say that April 5 is almost a month away, “so we don’t need an extension.
“But if I need an extension, I will probably get it extended,” he added.
This contradicts Trump’s earlier statement on Jan. 26, less than a week after he was sworn in when he vowed it would be done within 30 days. To that end, Trump recently delegated TikTok selling negotiations to JD Vance, whose views on the app haven’t been consistent. Back in March 2024, HuffPost reported that Vance said “we ought to do something about TikTok.” However, he then went on to join the app himself in August that year.
As previously reported by Passionfruit, ByteDance is slowrolling (deliberately delaying proceedings) negotiations with the US government as they wait for approval from the Chinese government. In conversation with the Washington Post, one source claimed that China is willing to “pull the plug” if ByteDance doesn’t get the “grand deal” it is waiting for. This “grand deal,” according to one WaPo source, is bigger concessions on trade and tech policy.
Apart from these vague statements from Trump, there has been little to no update on how these negotiations are actually going. On March 9, as he was leaving Air Force One, Trump said that he was in touch with “four different groups” about purchasing the app. Possible contenders include Frank McCourt’s ‘People’s Bid for TikTok,’ MrBeast and some associates, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft. However, Trump didn’t provide any further details.
