During the Biden maladministration, President Biden or an autopen signed a bill to impose a U.S. ban on Beijing-based ByteDance’s popular quick-vid-sharing app TikTok unless ByteDance sold TikTok to an acceptable buyer.
The legislation stipulated a sale deadline. No sale took place or was in the offing by that deadline. The ban therefore took effect, briefly, on January 19, 2025, just before President Trump’s second inauguration. The app went dark in the United States and was withdrawn from U.S. app stores.
The last minute
Trump, though, wielding his preinaugural authority as about-to-be-president, announced that as president he would sign an executive order extending the period during which a buyer could be sought. During this extension, his administration would do a deal to spare TikTok and its millions of ardent American fans while also protecting U.S. security. The legislation itself does not provide for such an extension unless a deal is in process, but, whatever, ByteDance and TikTok won a reprieve during which they could continue to do whatever caused lawmakers to controversially require that the TikTok app be sold or banned. (See the research linked below.)
The period of the extension, 75 days, has not yet elapsed. It will end in early April. What if the extension also expires without a sale on terms acceptable to President Trump? What happens then?
“Right now, we have at least another month, so we don’t need an extension,” Trump said last week. “But if I need an extension, I’ll probably get it extended” (New York Post, March 6, 2025).
Buyers
More recently, though, we are hearing that the administration has been talking to potential buyers. According a March 10 story in The Hill, “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, and a Jesse Tinsley–led group of investors have submitted formal offers.
So we have buyers. Do we also have a seller?
Let’s hope that one of the names that has been floated as a possible buyer, Elon Musk, is out of the picture. For all his merits, Musk has a history of rationalizing or evading the evils of the Chinese Communist Party. Moreover, reports have suggested that CCP officials might be okay with a sale of TikTok to him in particular—another mark against Musk.
Also see:
StoptheCCP.org: CCP-Controlled Apps Like TikTok and RedNote Do What the Party Wants
Network Contagion Research Institute: “A Tik-Tok-ing Timebomb: How TikTok’s Global Platform Anomalies Align with the Chinese Communist Party’s Geostrategic Objectives”
Network Contagion Research Institute: “TikTok’s Selective Censorship: A Comparative Analysis of Election-Related Hashtags Across Platforms”
Heritage Foundation: “TikTok Generation: A CCP Official in Every Pocket”
