Can Trump Broker a TikTok Sale Before the April 5 Deadline?
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has until April 5 to divest of its U.S. operations, per a deadline that President Donald Trump set in January. Failure to do so means TikTok will be banned in the U.S. market, or at least that’s what is supposed to happen under last year’s Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. And Trump is reportedly saying that a sale will happen before then, though the White House has provided few details.
ByteDance was originally supposed to divest by January 19, 2025, but Trump issued an executive order extending this requirement by 75 days.
We’re almost there, and no updates about a potential sale have been made public. And while Trump told reporters on Sunday that “there’s tremendous interest in Tiktok” from potential buyers, he didn’t mention anything about ByteDance’s interest level in them.
The Trump administration is meeting today to chat about potential investors, according to reporting by CBS News’ Jennifer Jacobs and Sara Cook. “The admin is finalizing plans for potential investors that could include Blackstone and Oracle, as well as a long list of other investors that will likely involve blue chip private equity firms, venture capital firms, and major investors in the technology industry,” Jacobs posted on X. Vice President J.D. Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are expected at the Oval Office meeting today. “It’s unclear if Mr. Trump will approve the strategy or not,” Jacobs added.
That we’re three days out from the sale deadline and proposals are still being finalized doesn’t seem like a great sign. But nothing about the way this has played out has been optimal.
The act that could ban TikTok is a speech-infringing nightmare that also hands the president power to ban all sorts of apps. It specifically calls out TikTok based on supposed national security threats, but lawmakers and federal officials only speak of these “threats” in theoretical terms without pointing to any existing actions by ByteDance or the Chinese government that credibly threaten U.S. security interests.
Trump appears to want to stop
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