Trump Extends TikTok Ban Deadline, Raising Questions About App's Future in the US

Donald Trump to extend US TikTok ban deadline, White House says

TikTok and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the BBC. Leavitt said the 90-day extension would "ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure." Before Leavitt's announcement, Trump told the BBC that he would "probably" extend the TikTok. "We'll probably have to get China approval," Trump said. "I think we'll get it. I think President Xi will ultimately approve it." When asked if he has the legal basis to extend the deadline, he responded: "We do." Trump's extension is at odds with the will of Congress, which passed the sale-or-ban measure last year. His predecessor, former President Joe Biden, immediately signed the bill into law. The law was aimed to address concerns that TikTok, which has 170 million American users, could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation. The Supreme Court agreed with a lower court and upheld the legislation in January just before Trump was set to take office. The platform briefly went dark for a few hours during the weekend before Trump's inauguration. TikTok praised Trump for saving the platform after it became available again. Trump's unilateral deadline extensions have led some analysts to dismiss the notion that a ban might ever take place during his time in office. "What ban? There is nothing 'looming' about the potential TikTok ban anymore," said Forrester principal analyst Kelsey Chickering. "TikTok's behaviour also indicates they're confident in their future, as they rolled out new AI video tools at Cannes this week." "Smaller players, like Snap, will try to steal share during this "uncertain time," but they will not succeed because this next round for TikTok isn't uncertain at all," Ms Chickering added. The Trump administration said in April that the US and China had neared a deal that would have placed majority control of TikTok's US operations under American ownership. That deal has yet to materialise. "There are key matters to be resolved," a ByteDance spokesperson said at the time. "Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law." Trump has said he would be open to seeing it sold to cloud computing giant Oracle, whose co-founder Larry Ellison is a long-time ally of Trump's. Billionaire Frank McCourt, Canadian businessman Kevin O'Leary, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian are part of another team bidding for the platform. And the biggest YouTuber in the world Jimmy Donaldson - AKA MrBeast - has said he's also interested in buying TikTok as part of a different investor group.

Despite law, US TikTok ban likely to remain on hold

US President Donald Trump is widely expected to extend the Thursday deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the United States. It would be the third time Trump put off enforcing a federal law requiring its sale or ban, which was to take effect the day before his January inauguration. "I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok," Trump said in an NBC News interview in early May. "If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension." Trump said a group of purchasers is ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance "a lot of money" for the video-clip-sharing sensation's US operations. Trump has repeatedly downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app's US business. The president is "just not motivated to do anything about TikTok," said independent analyst Rob Enderle. "Unless they get on his bad side, TikTok is probably going to be in pretty good shape." Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, but reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform after coming to believe it helped him win young voters' support in the November election. "Trump's not really doing great on his election promises," Enderle maintained. Motivated by national security fears and belief in Washington that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government, the ban took effect on January 19, one day before Trump's inauguration, with ByteDance having made no attempt to find a suitor. TikTok "has become a symbol of the US-China tech rivalry; a flashpoint in the new Cold War for digital control," said Shweta Singh, an assistant professor of information systems at Warwick Business School in Britain. "National security, economic policy, and digital governance are colliding," Singh added. The Republican president announced an initial 75-day delay of the ban upon taking office. A second extension pushed the deadline to June 19. As of Monday, there was no word of a TikTok sale in the works. Tariff turmoil Trump said in April that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for a dispute over tariffs imposed by Washington on Beijing. ByteDance has confirmed talks with the US government, saying key matters needed to be resolved and that any deal would be "subject to approval under Chinese law." Possible solutions reportedly include seeing existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company. Additional US investors, including Oracle and private equity firm Blackstone, would be brought on to reduce ByteDance's share in the new TikTok. Much of TikTok's US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company's chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally. Uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok's valuable algorithm. "TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand -- it's simply not as powerful," said Forrester Principal Analyst Kelsey Chickering. Meanwhile, it appears TikTok is continuing with business as usual. TikTok on Monday introduced a new "Symphony" suite of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools for advertisers to turn words or photos into video snippets for the platform. "With TikTok Symphony, we're empowering a global community of marketers, brands, and creators to tell stories that resonate, scale, and drive impact on TikTok," global head of creative and brand products Andy Yang said in a release.

Trump extends TikTok divestment deadline for another 90 days

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 90 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership. Trump disclosed the executive order on the Truth Social platform Thursday morning. "He's making an extension so we can get this deal done," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. "It's wildly popular. He also wants to protect Americans' data and privacy concerns on this app. And he believes we can do both at the same time." It is the third time Trump has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban -- approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court -- took effect. The second was in April when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump's tariff announcement. It is not clear how many times Trump can -- or will -- keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance. While there is no clear legal basis for the extensions, so far there have been no legal challenges to fight them. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a "warm spot for TikTok." TikTok praised Trump for signing an extension Thursday. "We are grateful for President Trump's leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users and 7.5 million U.S. businesses that rely on the platform as we continue to work with Vice President Vance's Office," the company said in a statement. As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but it has not faced a legal challenge in court -- unlike many of Trump's other executive orders. Jeremy Goldman, analyst at Emarketer, called TikTok's U.S situation a "deadline purgatory." The whole thing "is starting to feel less like a ticking clock and more like a looped ringtone. This political Groundhog Day is starting to resemble the debt ceiling drama: a recurring threat with no real resolution." That's not stopping TikTok from pushing forward with its platform, Forrester analyst Kelsey Chickering says. "TikTok's behavior also indicates they're confident in their future, as they rolled out new AI video tools at Cannes this week," Chickering notes. "Smaller players, like Snap, will try to steal share during this 'uncertain time,' but they will not succeed because this next round for TikTok isn't uncertain at all." For now, TikTok continues to function for its 170 million users in the U.S., and tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle were persuaded to continue to offer and support the app, on the promise that Trump's Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them. Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren't sure. Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users' data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Trump administration is once again "flouting the law and ignoring its own national security findings about the risks" posed by a China-controlled TikTok. "An executive order can't sidestep the law, but that's exactly what the president is trying to do," Warner added.

Despite law, US TikTok ban likely to remain on hold

San Francisco (United States) (AFP) - US President Donald Trump is widely expected to extend the Thursday deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the United States. It would be the third time Trump put off enforcing a federal law requiring its sale or ban, which was to take effect the day before his January inauguration. "I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok," Trump said in an NBC News interview in early May. "If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension." Trump said a group of purchasers is ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance "a lot of money" for the video-clip-sharing sensation's US operations. Trump has repeatedly downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app's US business. The president is "just not motivated to do anything about TikTok," said independent analyst Rob Enderle. "Unless they get on his bad side, TikTok is probably going to be in pretty good shape." Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, but reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform after coming to believe it helped him win young voters' support in the November election. "Trump's not really doing great on his election promises," Enderle maintained. Motivated by national security fears and belief in Washington that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government, the ban took effect on January 19, one day before Trump's inauguration, with ByteDance having made no attempt to find a suitor. TikTok "has become a symbol of the US-China tech rivalry; a flashpoint in the new Cold War for digital control," said Shweta Singh, an assistant professor of information systems at Warwick Business School in Britain. "National security, economic policy, and digital governance are colliding," Singh added. The Republican president announced an initial 75-day delay of the ban upon taking office. A second extension pushed the deadline to June 19. As of Monday, there was no word of a TikTok sale in the works. Tariff turmoil Trump said in April that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for a dispute over tariffs imposed by Washington on Beijing. ByteDance has confirmed talks with the US government, saying key matters needed to be resolved and that any deal would be "subject to approval under Chinese law". Possible solutions reportedly include seeing existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company. Additional US investors, including Oracle and private equity firm Blackstone, would be brought on to reduce ByteDance's share in the new TikTok. Much of TikTok's US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company's chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally. Uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok's valuable algorithm. "TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand -- it's simply not as powerful," said Forrester Principal Analyst Kelsey Chickering. Meanwhile, it appears TikTok is continuing with business as usual. TikTok on Monday introduced a new "Symphony" suite of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools for advertisers to turn words or photos into video snippets for the platform. "With TikTok Symphony, we're empowering a global community of marketers, brands, and creators to tell stories that resonate, scale, and drive impact on TikTok," global head of creative and brand products Andy Yang said in a release.

Despite law, US TikTok ban likely to remain on hold

Trump said a group of purchasers is ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance "a lot of money" for the video-clip-sharing sensation's US operations. Trump has repeatedly downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app's US business.US President Donald Trump is widely expected to extend the Thursday deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the United States. It would be the third time Trump put off enforcing a federal law requiring its sale or ban, which was to take effect the day before his January inauguration. "I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok," Trump said in an NBC News interview in early May. "If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension." Trump said a group of purchasers is ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance "a lot of money" for the video-clip-sharing sensation's US operations. Trump has repeatedly downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app's US business. The president is "just not motivated to do anything about TikTok," said independent analyst Rob Enderle. "Unless they get on his bad side, TikTok is probably going to be in pretty good shape." Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, but reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform after coming to believe it helped him win young voters' support in the November election. "Trump's not really doing great on his election promises," Enderle maintained. "This could be one that he can actually deliver on." Digital Cold War? Motivated by national security fears and belief in Washington that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government, the ban took effect on January 19, one day before Trump's inauguration, with ByteDance having made no attempt to find a suitor. TikTok "has become a symbol of the US-China tech rivalry; a flashpoint in the new Cold War for digital control," said Shweta Singh, an assistant professor of information systems at Warwick Business School in Britain. "National security, economic policy, and digital governance are colliding," Singh added. The Republican president announced an initial 75-day delay of the ban upon taking office. A second extension pushed the deadline to June 19. As of Monday, there was no word of a TikTok sale in the works. Tariff turmoil Trump said in April that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for a dispute over tariffs imposed by Washington on Beijing. ByteDance has confirmed talks with the US government, saying key matters needed to be resolved and that any deal would be "subject to approval under Chinese law". Possible solutions reportedly include seeing existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company. Additional US investors, including Oracle and private equity firm Blackstone, would be brought on to reduce ByteDance's share in the new TikTok. Much of TikTok's US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company's chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally. Uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok's valuable algorithm. "TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand -- it's simply not as powerful," said Forrester Principal Analyst Kelsey Chickering. Meanwhile, it appears TikTok is continuing with business as usual. TikTok on Monday introduced a new "Symphony" suite of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools for advertisers to turn words or photos into video snippets for the platform. "With TikTok Symphony, we're empowering a global community of marketers, brands, and creators to tell stories that resonate, scale, and drive impact on TikTok," global head of creative and brand products Andy Yang said in a release.

Donald Trump to again extend TikTok's reprieve from US ban

Trump, who issued similar delays in January and in April, has given TikTok an unexpected lifeline after its future in the United States appeared to be doomed. The president tried to ban TikTok in his first term but flipped his stance on the app last year -- a shift that is credited in part to one of his donors, who has a sizable stake in ByteDance, as well as his own growing popularity on the app.President Donald Trump intends to again extend the deadline for when TikTok must be separated from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban in the United States, its third reprieve this year. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday that Trump would sign an executive order this week giving TikTok 90 more days -- to mid-September -- to find a new owner to comply with a federal law that requires the company to change its ownership structure to resolve national security concerns. TikTok's current deadline is Thursday. "As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark," Leavitt said in a statement. Trump has repeatedly declined to enforce the law, which the Supreme Court upheld in January after Congress passed it with wide bipartisan support last year. The app's future is part of the discussion in his administration's ongoing trade talks with China. Trump, who issued similar delays in January and in April, has given TikTok an unexpected lifeline after its future in the United States appeared to be doomed. The president tried to ban TikTok in his first term but flipped his stance on the app last year -- a shift that is credited in part to one of his donors, who has a sizable stake in ByteDance, as well as his own growing popularity on the app. The repeated extensions have raised concerns among a handful of lawmakers, who have urged Trump to clarify his plans for TikTok or force it to stop operating in the United States. They and others in Washington worry that TikTok could hand over sensitive U.S. user data to Beijing, like location information, or that China could use TikTok's content recommendations to sway opinions and spread misinformation in the United States. But broadly, there does not appear to be much political appetite to force a deal or shutter the app, despite the law. "This is just a wild situation that we're in -- the president has essentially nullified a law because he doesn't like it," said Alan Rozenshtein, a former national security adviser to the Justice Department and an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. "What's crazier is the U.S. companies are going along with it. Since they've gone along with it so far, they may as well keep going along with it." The law had called on ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner by Jan. 19. It targeted app store operators and internet hosting companies with steep financial penalties if they distributed or maintained TikTok after that date, but Trump's administration assured them in letters that his Justice Department would not assess those penalties while his delays were in place. A deal, orchestrated by Vice President JD Vance, seemed imminent in April. It would have spun TikTok into a new company with new American investors, reducing the ownership stakes of Chinese investors. The private equity giant Blackstone and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz had both expressed interest. But the talks fell apart over the then-escalating tariff war between the United States and China. ByteDance, which rarely comments to reporters, said at the time that there were "key matters to be resolved" and that "any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law." Despite the overhang of the federal law, TikTok has been working hard to show advertisers and the American public that it's operating as usual. The company promoted its ad tools in a splashy pitch to marketers in New York last month, which was hosted by comedian Hasan Minhaj, and has been presenting to advertisers again this week on the French Riviera at the annual Cannes Lions advertising festival. Khartoon Weiss, the company's vice president of global business solutions, said Tuesday that TikTok was "absolutely confident in a resolution." "We are just very confident where we're going, and so are over 1 billion users with us," Weiss said at a press briefing in Cannes. TikTok is also dealing with the more typical issues that face modern social media platforms, like accusations that the app fuels eating disorders among young people. That was highlighted this month when it banned search results for the hashtag #SkinnyTok after pressure from European regulators. Some lawmakers have urged Trump to enforce the law in recent months, though those efforts have been somewhat tepid. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., who heads a House committee focused on China, was asked about rumors of another TikTok extension at a conference this month. "The strongest way for us to negotiate would be to let it go dark and see if China comes to the table," he said. Separately, a group of Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Ritchie Torres of New York, wrote a letter to Trump this month seeking clarity on his plans for TikTok and DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup. The lawmakers said TikTok and DeepSeek "raise legitimate and well-documented security concerns," and sought more information on what they called "the advantageous treatment of foreign technology with ties to the Chinese Communist Party."

Trump Extends TikTok Ban Deadline for Third Time

Karen Read Found Not Guilty of Second-Degree Murder, Guilty of Drunken Driving President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 90 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership. Trump disclosed the executive order on the Truth Social platform Thursday morning. "As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Tuesday. It is the third time Trump has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban -- approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court -- took effect. The second was in April when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump's tariff announcement. It is not clear how many times Trump can -- or will -- keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance. While there is no clear legal basis for the extensions, so far there have been no legal challenges to fight them. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a "warm spot for TikTok." TikTok praised Trump for signing an extension Thursday. "We are grateful for President Trump's leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users and 7.5 million U.S. businesses that rely on the platform as we continue to work with Vice President Vance's Office," the company said in a statement. As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but it has not faced a legal challenge in court -- unlike many of Trump's other executive orders. Jeremy Goldman, analyst at Emarketer, called TikTok's U.S situation a "deadline purgatory." The whole thing "is starting to feel less like a ticking clock and more like a looped ringtone. This political Groundhog Day is starting to resemble the debt ceiling drama: a recurring threat with no real resolution." That's not stopping TikTok from pushing forward with its platform, Forrester analyst Kelsey Chickering says. "TikTok's behavior also indicates they're confident in their future, as they rolled out new AI video tools at Cannes this week," Chickering notes. "Smaller players, like Snap, will try to steal share during this 'uncertain time,' but they will not succeed because this next round for TikTok isn't uncertain at all." For now, TikTok continues to function for its 170 million users in the U.S., and tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle were persuaded to continue to offer and support the app, on the promise that Trump's Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them. Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50 percent in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren't sure. Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users' data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Trump administration is once again "flouting the law and ignoring its own national security findings about the risks" posed by a China-controlled TikTok. "An executive order can't sidestep the law, but that's exactly what the president is trying to do," Warner added.

Trump to again extend TikTok's reprieve from US ban

President Donald Trump intends to again extend the deadline for when TikTok must be separated from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban in the United States, its third reprieve this year. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday that Trump would sign an executive order this week giving TikTok 90 more days -- to mid-September -- to find a new owner to comply with a federal law that requires the company to change its ownership structure to resolve national security concerns. TikTok's current deadline is Thursday. "As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark," Leavitt said in a statement. Trump has repeatedly declined to enforce the law, which the Supreme Court upheld in January after Congress passed it with wide bipartisan support last year. The app's future is part of the discussion in his administration's ongoing trade talks with China. Trump, who issued similar delays in January and in April, has given TikTok an unexpected lifeline after its future in the United States appeared to be doomed. The president tried to ban TikTok in his first term but flipped his stance on the app last year -- a shift that is credited in part to one of his donors, who has a sizable stake in ByteDance, as well as his own growing popularity on the app. The repeated extensions have raised concerns among a handful of lawmakers, who have urged Trump to clarify his plans for TikTok or force it to stop operating in the United States. They and others in Washington worry that TikTok could hand over sensitive U.S. user data to Beijing, like location information, or that China could use TikTok's content recommendations to sway opinions and spread misinformation in the United States. But broadly, there does not appear to be much political appetite to force a deal or shutter the app, despite the law. "This is just a wild situation that we're in -- the president has essentially nullified a law because he doesn't like it," said Alan Rozenshtein, a former national security adviser to the Justice Department and an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. "What's crazier is the U.S. companies are going along with it. Since they've gone along with it so far, they may as well keep going along with it." The law had called on ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner by Jan. 19. It targeted app store operators and internet hosting companies with steep financial penalties if they distributed or maintained TikTok after that date, but Trump's administration assured them in letters that his Justice Department would not assess those penalties while his delays were in place. A deal, orchestrated by Vice President JD Vance, seemed imminent in April. It would have spun TikTok into a new company with new American investors, reducing the ownership stakes of Chinese investors. The private equity giant Blackstone and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz had both expressed interest. But the talks fell apart over the then-escalating tariff war between the United States and China. ByteDance, which rarely comments to reporters, said at the time that there were "key matters to be resolved" and that "any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law." Despite the overhang of the federal law, TikTok has been working hard to show advertisers and the American public that it's operating as usual. The company promoted its ad tools in a splashy pitch to marketers in New York last month, which was hosted by comedian Hasan Minhaj, and has been presenting to advertisers again this week on the French Riviera at the annual Cannes Lions advertising festival. Khartoon Weiss, the company's vice president of global business solutions, said Tuesday that TikTok was "absolutely confident in a resolution." "We are just very confident where we're going, and so are over 1 billion users with us," Weiss said at a press briefing in Cannes. TikTok is also dealing with the more typical issues that face modern social media platforms, like accusations that the app fuels eating disorders among young people. That was highlighted this month when it banned search results for the hashtag #SkinnyTok after pressure from European regulators. Some lawmakers have urged Trump to enforce the law in recent months, though those efforts have been somewhat tepid. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., who heads a House committee focused on China, was asked about rumors of another TikTok extension at a conference this month. "The strongest way for us to negotiate would be to let it go dark and see if China comes to the table," he said. Separately, a group of Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Ritchie Torres of New York, wrote a letter to Trump this month seeking clarity on his plans for TikTok and DeepSeek, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup. The lawmakers said TikTok and DeepSeek "raise legitimate and well-documented security concerns," and sought more information on what they called "the advantageous treatment of foreign technology with ties to the Chinese Communist Party."

Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for a third time

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 90 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership. Trump disclosed the executive order on the Truth Social platform Thursday morning. "As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Tuesday. It is the third time Trump has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban -- approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court -- took effect. The second was in April when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump's tariff announcement. It is not clear how many times Trump can -- or will -- keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance. While there is no clear legal basis for the extensions, so far there have been no legal challenges to fight them. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a "warm spot for TikTok." TikTok praised Trump for signing an extension Thursday. "We are grateful for President Trump's leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users and 7.5 million U.S. businesses that rely on the platform as we continue to work with Vice President Vance's Office," the company said in a statement. As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but it has not faced a legal challenge in court -- unlike many of Trump's other executive orders. Jeremy Goldman, analyst at Emarketer, called TikTok's U.S situation a "deadline purgatory." The whole thing "is starting to feel less like a ticking clock and more like a looped ringtone. This political Groundhog Day is starting to resemble the debt ceiling drama: a recurring threat with no real resolution." That's not stopping TikTok from pushing forward with its platform, Forrester analyst Kelsey Chickering says. "TikTok's behavior also indicates they're confident in their future, as they rolled out new AI video tools at Cannes this week," Chickering notes. "Smaller players, like Snap, will try to steal share during this 'uncertain time,' but they will not succeed because this next round for TikTok isn't uncertain at all." For now, TikTok continues to function for its 170 million users in the U.S., and tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle were persuaded to continue to offer and support the app, on the promise that Trump's Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them. Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50 per cent in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren't sure. Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about eight in 10 cited concerns over users' data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Trump administration is once again "flouting the law and ignoring its own national security findings about the risks" posed by a China-controlled TikTok. "An executive order can't sidestep the law, but that's exactly what the president is trying to do," Warner added.