TikTok gets to live for another 3 months in US as Donald Trump extends sale deadline

Donald Trump is set to once again extend the deadline by which TikTok needs to distance itself from ByteDance, its Chinese parent company in order to avoid a ban in the US. The platform will now have to restructure its ownership by mid-September. This is the third time TikTok has received a reprieve from Trump this year.


TikTok will live for another three months. Donald Trump has extended the deadline by which it needs to be sold to a new US owner. Karoline Leavitt , the White House Press Secretary, confirmed this in a statement on Tuesday (June 17) and added that Trump will sign the executive order this week. She further added that the administration will utilise this time to ensure that this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure."

The extension, originally signed in January, on paper gives legal protection to TikTok’s US service providers. This, however, has not been codified into the law. Moreover, several lawmakers have called these extensions ‘illegal’

After the last extension in April, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-VA) termed the move "against the law."

Similarly, some senators have warned that further extensions can spell trouble for TikTok’s US service providers to face legal issues. They can be fined for allowing access to the app even after the deadline.


In April, ByteDance was nearing an agreement with a group led by Oracle. However, the deal failed to materialise amid tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

Although trade relations between the U.S. and China have since improved, there has been no news about revisiting that agreement.

Even if a sale were to happen, it was still not clear if China would allow ByteDance to give up the valuable algorithm behind TikTok’s recommendation system