Trump extends TikTok deadline for the second time

April 4, 2025

Muhammed Selim Korkutata | Anadolu | Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Friday extended a deadline requiring China-based ByteDance to sell the U.S. operations of TikTok or face an effective ban in the country, marking the second time he takes such action.

Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social that because the TikTok deal “requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed,” he is signing an executive order “to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.”

“We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!),” Trump said in the post.

Prior to Trump’s decision, ByteDance faced an April 5 deadline to carry out a “qualified divestiture” of TikTok’s U.S. business as required by a national security law signed by former President Joe Biden in April 2024.

ByteDance’s original deadline to sell TikTok was on Jan. 19, but Trump signed an executive order when he took office the next day that gave the company 75 more days to make a deal. Although the law would penalize internet service providers and app store owners like Apple and Google for hosting and providing services to TikTok in the U.S., Trump’s executive order instructed the attorney general to not enforce it.

The day before the law went into effect, AppleGoogleremoved TikTok from their respective app stores while TikTok temporarily shut down for American users. It came back online the next day after Trump said he would sign an executive order. TikTok returned to the Apple App Store and Google Play in February.

Several parties like Oracle and AppLovin have expressed interest in owning TikTok’s U.S. assets, CNBC’s David Faber reported. Earlier on Wednesday, Amazon made a last-second bid to purchase TikTok, CNBC confirmed.

Another interested party included a group of like Andreessen Horowitz, Blackstone and other private capital firms, who would own roughly half of TikTok’s U.S. operations in a deal, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. In this deal, TikTok’s current investors like General Atlantic, Susquehanna, KKR and Coatue would be included in the new U.S.-specific TikTok unit, owning about 30% of the business, the report said.

The Chinese government still needs to approve the deal before it can complete.

The TikTok-related announcement came after Trump signed a far-reaching “reciprocal tariff” policy at the White House, in which he imposed a 34% tariff rate on China. Coupled with the existing 20% tariffs on Chinese imports, the true tariff rate on China is now 54%.

Trump previously said he may consider reducing China tariffs to help facilitate TikTok deal. The president also said that it’s possible he would give ByteDance another extension if there was not a finalized deal.

Earlier in March, Vice President JD Vance told NBC News that a TikTok-related deal could potentially happen by the April deadline.

“There will almost certainly be a high-level agreement that I think satisfies our national security concerns, allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise,” Vance said at the time.

Trump has previously said that he would consider the possibility of Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison purchasing TikTok. He also signed an executive order establishing a sovereign wealth fund that he said could be used to help buy the app.

Billionaire Frank McCourt and his Project Liberty consortium are also interested in acquiring TikTok’s U.S. operations, and in March, they announced that Redditreported.

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