TikTok could be banned in the US in the next few days. Or it could stay.
Perhaps it will have new owners. Maybe it won’t.
Yes, you’ve heard all of this before: In January, the enormously popular video app was slated to go dark in the US — and in fact, did go offline for a few hours — because of a law forcing the Chinese-owned company to shut down or find new owners for its US operations.
Then Donald Trump signed an executive order pushing back the date of the ban until April 5 — that’s Saturday. So here we are.
In the newest version of the story, the most likely outcome is a deal where a coalition of US investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Blackstone, and Silver Lake, buys a 50% stake in TikTok’s US operations; in that proposal, some of the existing investors in ByteDance, TikTok’s current owner, keep a stake as well. We’ve also heard about a flurry of last-minute bids from Amazon and other players. Vice President JD Vance says there will be some kind of deal announced before the deadline.
A TikTok sale needs one big sign-off
The problem with any of these would-be solutions: It’s entirely unclear whether ByteDance would agree to divest its US operations, and/or whether the Chinese government would allow it. Without those sign-offs, it doesn’t matter what kind of deal structure Trump and US investors would like.
Trump has previously said he might convince Chinese officials to OK a deal by reducing tariffs on China. But as of Thursday, we have no idea if those negotiations are happening; Dan Primack, the well-sourced Axios finance reporter, says his sources say “they’ve still not heard of direct discussions between the US and Chinese governments on a particular proposal.” I’ve asked TikTok and the White House for comment.
So it’s entirely possible that on Saturday, there still won’t be an actual deal — as opposed to a proposal — in place to transfer majority ownership of TikTok’s US operations to non-Chinese owners, which was the thrust of the law passed by Congress, signed by Joe Biden, and upheld by the Supreme Court.
And If that’s the case, what happens on Saturday?
My hunch: Nothing.
Or, to be more specific: Trump announces that the proposal he’s announced is a deal, regardless of the facts. And TikTok keeps operating as normal, and the can keeps getting kicked down the road.
After all, we’ve already seen Trump ignore a TikTok deadline in the past.
In January, even before he was president, Trump was telling various technology companies to ignore the TikTok law that went into effect on January 19. And his executive order specifically instructs the US attorney general not to enforce the law “even after the expiration” of the 75-day extension Trump granted himself.
And just to keep repeating this: While the existing TikTok law does allow the president to grant a one-time, 90-day extension before TikTok is banned, that’s only supposed to happen if there is an actual plan to divest, and there is “evidence of significant progress” toward making that happen, and there are “relevant binding agreements” in place.
But obviously none of that was happening on January 20, when Trump signed his executive order pushing the ban back. And it doesn’t seem to be happening yet this time around.
We’re in Trump’s world now
In a normal, pre-Trump world, you’d expect someone — perhaps a TikTok rival like Meta, perhaps a member of Congress who signed the TikTok sell-or-ban bill last year — to raise serious objections to the fact that the Trump administration appears to be ignoring a law. Perhaps someone might have even challenged the White House in court.
But in the world we live in today, it looks like TikTok will be in the US for some time to come. No matter who owns it.
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