President Trump gives TikTok 75-day extension to sell its US business

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order giving TikTok a 75-day extension to sell the platform’s US business in order to comply with a law that requires the sale of the app or will see it banned.

Among an array of executive orders signed by the president after he took office on Monday, Trump said his order would give TikTok’s China-based parent firm ByteDance more time to find a buyer.

Trump has floated the idea of a 50-50 joint venture between ByteDance and the United States in ownership of TikTok, but further details on any such scheme and how that could work have not yet been shared, and ByteDance has so far resisted pressure to agree to any sale.

The executive order means the Trump administration will not enforce a law signed by former president Joe Biden last year which banned the app on national security grounds.

The Biden administration argued the data of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok could fall into the hands of the Chinese government or that the site’s recommendation algorithm could be manipulated to sow discord in the United States.

Trump supported a similar ban during his first term as president but has since said he changed his view after gaining traction on the platform which he claims helped him win younger voters during the presidential election.

TikTok went dark in the US on Saturday ahead of the proposed ban coming into effect, but resumed service on Sunday evening after Trump confirmed he would issue an executive order once he took office.

A message shown to users of the app in the US as it returned thanked the incoming president for his intervention and TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew was among a range of technology executives to attend President Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

The UK Government has previously banned TikTok from government devices but one Cabinet minister said it does not intend to follow the US with an outright ban.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “We always keep all of these technology issues under consideration, whether it’s for national security or data privacy concerns.

“We have laws in place and processes to do that. We have no plans right now to ban TikTok from the UK.

“So, we won’t be following the same path that the Americans have followed unless or until at some point in the future there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest.”