US President Donald Trump has said he is signing an executive order to keep TikTok up and running in the United States for an additional 75 days.
It comes hours before a deadline for the video-sharing platform to find a non-Chinese owner or face a ban in the US.
The hugely popular app has more than 170 million American users.
It is under threat from a US law that passed overwhelmingly last year that orders TikTok to split from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or get shut down in the US.
Mr Trump said “tremendous progress” had been made on the sale, but more work was needed to secure approvals.
He added that he looked forward to working with TikTok and China to close the deal, and that he did not want the app to “go dark.”
Motivated by national security fears and widespread belief in the US that TikTok is ultimately controlled by the Chinese government, the law took effect on 19 January, one day before Mr Trump’s inauguration.
In the hours before that deadline, TikTok temporarily shut down in the US and disappeared from app stores, to the dismay of millions of users.
But the Republican president quickly announced a 75-day delay and TikTok subsequently restored service to existing users, returning to the Apple and Google app stores in February.
That delay is set to expire at midnight on 5 April, but Mr 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 also suggested TikTok could even be part of a broader deal with China to ease the stinging tariffs he imposed on Beijing as part of a worldwide blitz of levies.
Asked yesterday if he was willing to make deals with countries on tariffs, he said: “As long as they are giving us something that is good – for instance with TikTok.”
“We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say we’ll approve a deal but will you do something on the tariffs. The tariffs give us great power to negotiate,” he added.
Who is interested in TikTok?
According to reports, the most likely solution would see existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company.
Additional US investors, including Oracle and Blackstone, the private equity firm, would be brought on to reduce the proportion of Chinese investors.
Much of TikTok’s US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company’s chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally.
But uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok’s valuable algorithm. The New York Times suggested the new company could licence it from ByteDance.
The arrangement would, however, go against the spirit of the law, which is in part based on the premise that TikTok’s algorithm can be weaponised by the Chinese against US interests.
Amazon has also reportedly made a last-minute bid to buy TikTok.
Other proposals include an initiative called ‘The People’s Bid for TikTok’, launched by real estate and sports tycoon Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative.
Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity recently expressed interest in buying TikTok, as did a joint venture involving YouTube mega-celebrity MrBeast.
Mr Trump, though he supported a ban in his first term, has lately become a TikTok defender, seeing it as a reason more young voters supported him in November’s election.
One of his major political donors, billionaire Jeff Yass, is a major stakeholder in parent company ByteDance.
