Why has Trump postponed the TikTok ban?

20 Jun 2025 03:10

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Photo: BBC

US President Donald Trump has for a third time extended the deadline that would have required TikTok to be sold or face a ban in the US, News.az reports citing BBC.

A bipartisan law passed by Congress last year mandates TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sell the app.

The platform 'went dark' for a day in January after the law took effect, until Trump intervened issuing consecutive 75-day postponements, and now a 90 day extension until September.

The US government has said TikTok poses a threat to national security because Chinese authorities might access its vast trove of user data, which Beijing denies.

Trump once supported a ban, but changed his position in part because of the role he believes it played in his second election victory: "I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points", he said in December.

But a key Democrat lawmaker has criticised continued postponements.

Senator Mark Warner accused Trump of "flouting the law and ignoring its own national security findings about the risks posed by a PRC [People's Republic of China] controlled TikTok".

If there is no deal, will TikTok be banned?

If no deal is reached by 17 September, the app could once again face a US ban and be pulled from app stores.

And the executive orders extending the time to find a buyer do not overturn the sell-or-ban law passed by Congress and upheld by the US Supreme Court.

So a ban remains at least a legal possibility.Source: Getty Images | President Donald Trump has said he would "like to see TikTok remain alive".

Who might buy TikTok?

President Trump has previously said "multiple investors" were closing in on a deal.

He also suggested the US could offer a deal where China agrees to approve a TikTok sale in exchange for relief from US tariffs on Chinese imports.

But it is unlikely that TikTok's parent company will sell without the blessing of the Chinese government.

Several potential buyers have cropped up in reports.

Amazon has put in a last-minute offer to the White House to acquire TikTok, according to the BBC's US partner CBS. Amazon declined to comment.

Trump has said he would be open to selling TikTok to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, as well as Elon Musk, although the latter said he had no intention of buying.

Other potential buyers include billionaire Frank McCourt, together with Canadian businessman Kevin O'Leary - a celebrity investor on Shark Tank, the US version of Dragons' Den.

Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit, said in a post on X last month that he had joined Mr McCourt's bid.

The biggest YouTuber in the world Jimmy Donaldson - AKA MrBeast - has also said he's looking to buy TikTok as part of a group of investors.

Tim Stokely, the British founder of OnlyFans, has also to offered to buy TikTok under his recently re-launched company, Zoop.

Computing giant Microsoft, private equity giant Blackstone, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and search engine Perplexity AI are also reportedly in the running for a stake.

The White House has reportedly considered an option whereby ByteDance would keep ownership of TikTok's algorithm, but lease it to a new entity operating the video-sharing app within the US.Source: Getty Images | MrBeast is the most popular YouTuber in the world with more than 300m subscribers

TikTok says it has 170 million US users who spent - on average - 51 minutes per day on the app in 2024.

Experts say rivals such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts could benefit if Trump's efforts to broker a sale of TikTok don't succeed.

"Chief marketing officers who we've spoken with confirmed that they will divert their media dollars to Meta and Google if they can no longer advertise on TikTok," said Kelsey Chickering, an analyst at market research company Forrester.

Other potential winners include Amazon's Twitch, which made its name by hosting livestreams - a popular feature on TikTok. Twitch is well known particularly to gamers, though its other content is expanding, too.

Other Chinese-owned platforms, such as Xiaohongshu - known as RedNote among its US users - have also seen rapid growth in the US and the UK.

News.Az