Image credit: Solen Feyissa

A new report says that TikTok’s divest-or-ban deadline for operations in the U.S. is being extended by President Trump for the third time.

5 years ago, TikTok‘s video app faced an imminent ban from app stores in the U.S.. The decision had been led by then President, Donald Trump. 5 years on and TikTok remains, but it is now Trump who is postponing a TikTok ban ordered by U.S. congress under Joe Biden.

That’s according to the Wall Street Journal, who report that Trump is postponing the deadline of June 19th for TikTok to divest its U.S. operations to another company or face a nationwide ban. The deadline has already been postponed twice since congress announced their demands, with an original deadline date of January this year.

The Wall Street Journal reports that trade policy between the U.S. and China is the leading cause of stalls in a sale to an American entity. This has been helped none by Trump’s tariffs, which remain higher for China than many other countries. Negotiations over tariffs between the U.S. and China continue to take place this week.

There are plenty of willing buyers in the U.S. for TikTok. Whilst Trump had put forward Elon Musk earlier in the year, Musk said: “I have not put in a bid for TikTok. I don’t have any plans for what I would do if I had TikTok.” Now, with Trump and Musk’s fallout, the president likely isn’t encouraging that deal anymore.

The last two deadline postponements have seen President Trump provide 75 days longer for parent company ByteDance to act before being banned. Whilst the third postponement hasn’t been confirmed, if true it will likely be another 75 days of leeway for ByteDance, giving them until the 2nd of September.

Last week, Trump told reporters: “I’d like to save TIkTok. I mean, TikTok was very good to me.”

What’s the story

US President Donald Trump has said that he may extend the deadline for China-based tech giant ByteDance to divest its American operations of TikTok.

The current deadline for the sale is set for June 19.

To note, Trump has previously indicated openness to extensions due to TikTok’s role in connecting him with younger voters during his 2024 presidential campaign.

Could President Donald Trump’s lifelines for TikTok spark lawsuits? This illustration photo was taken in late January, when the social-media platform briefly went down for American users ahead of Trump’s inauguration.

President Donald Trump threw a lifeline to TikTok in January, and he did it again in April. Now, a repeat performance is widely expected by Thursday, when his latest extension is due to run out.

Trump keeps ordering the Justice Department not to enforce a bipartisan law that was intended to ban TikTok nationwide as of Jan. 19 as long as the video-sharing platform remains controlled by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance Ltd. Supporters of the law have argued that the popular app is a threat to national security and have raised data-privacy concerns.

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump plans to again delay a ban on TikTok, allowing the wildly popular video app to continue operating in the United States for another 90 days.

Trump will sign an executive order for the 90-day extension later this week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a June 17 statement.

“As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark,” Leavitt said, adding that the administration will continue to work during the 90-day period to secure a deal with TikTok so Americans “can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.”

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More: Trump considers extending TikTok deadline. Is third time a charm?

Trump’s action, which was widely expected, will mark the third time since returning to the White House that he’s delayed a TikTok sell-or-ban law from going into effect after it was passed by Congress in 2024 and signed by former President Joe Biden.

The law requires TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, to divest TikTok’s U.S. or be banned from U.S. app stores and web hosting companies. The next deadline was set for Thursday, June 19.

More: ‘I got to use it’: Donald Trump’s evolution from TikTok foe to a fan

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have raised national security concerns with TikTok, arguing that ByteDance may be sharing U.S. user data with the Chinese government. ByteDance has denied these claims and Trump has downplayed such concerns.

A photo taken on April 10, 2025 shows the TikTok logo on a smartphone screen and the U.S. flag on a laptop screen in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany.

TikTok, especially popular among young Americans, has 170 million users in the United States. Trump has credited his 2024 presidential campaign’s use of TikTok for helping him improve his performance with young voters from his previous two elections.

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Parties that have expressed interest in purchasing Tiktok include the tech company Oracle, billionaire businessman Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty and Andreessen Horowitz, a California-based venture founded by billionaire investor Marc Andreessen.

More: Trump says trade deal with China is ‘done;’ aides tout ‘framework’ deal

During TikTok’s initial Jan. 19 sell-or-ban deadline ‒ the final full day of the Biden administration ‒ TikTok went dark for a little more than 12 hours in the U.S. when the ban went into effect. U.S. internet hosting services made TikTok unavailable to access, and app stores removed the app for download.

But the outage was short-lived. On his first day of office, Trump signed an executive order delaying the TikTok ban by 75 days.

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More: TikTok deal, largely finalized, on hold over Trump tariffs on China, Reuters reports

Complicating the sale of TikTok had been Trump’s trade war with China. Ahead of an April 5 sell-or-ban TikTok deadline, Reuters reported that a deal was in place to spin off TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new company based in America. The company would have been owned and operated by a majority of U.S. investors.

But China refused to sign off on the deal when Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports along with goods from other countries. As a result, Trump on April 4 delayed the TikTok ban for 75 days.

After months of negotiations, Trump and Chinese officials last week announced a framework for a trade deal between the two nations in which the U.S. would collect 55% tariffs on Chinese imports and China would collect 10% on U.S. imports.

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Contributing: Reuters and Greta Cross of USA TODAY

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump to delay TikTok ban for the third time with 90-day extension

EVEN GREATER PROGRESS. WELL, HEADING ON OVER TO WASHINGTON, WHERE THE U.S. SUPREME COURT DECIDED TO UPHOLD THE FEDERAL LAW BANNING TIKTOK STARTING SUNDAY UNLESS IT’S SOLD BY ITS CHINA BASED PARENT COMPANY. NOW, THE COURT SAID THE RISK TO NATIONAL SECURITY POSED BY TIKTOK’S TIES TO CHINA OVERCOMES CONCERNS ABOUT LIMITING SPEECH BY THE APP OR ITS 170 MILLION USERS HERE IN THE U.S. NOW, THE WHITE HOUSE SAYS THAT THE APP SHOULD REMAIN AVAILABLE TO AMERICANS DESPITE THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION. WE SPOKE WITH THE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST AND HEMPFIELD LANCASTER COUNTY GRADUATE, AND SHE SAYS TIKTOK’S ALGORITHM, WHICH CAN HONE IN ON WHAT YOU LIKE, MAKES IT DIFFERENT. WE ALSO SPOKE ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THE BAN. OBVIOUSLY, THERE’S A LOT OF PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT RELY ON TIKTOK AS AN INCOME. A LOT OF CREATORS THAT DO IT FULL TIME ARE GOING TO SEE A HUGE IMPACT. IN A TIKTOK BAN. YOU KNOW, WHETHER THEY’RE PIVOTING TO OTHER PLATFORMS LIKE INSTAGRAM OR YOUTUBE, THE MONETIZATION IS NOT THE SAME LIKE IT IS ON TIKTOK. AND WE ALSO SPOKE WITH THE LANCASTER BUSINESS OWNER ABOUT WHAT A TIKTOK BAN WOULD MEAN FOR HER. KRISTIE ALBERT OF A-LISTERS LIQUORS SAYS TIKTOK IS A TOOL FOR SMALL BUSINESSES TO ADVERTISE FREELY AND GET CUSTOMERS IN THE DOOR. TAKE A LISTEN. I SEE THAT BEING A HUGE DISADVANTAGE TO SMALL MAKERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES IN THE FUTURE, BECAUSE WE DON’T HAVE THE SAME, YOU KNOW, AMOUNT OF MONEY TO INVEST IN MARKETING THAT BIG BUSINESS DOES. AND SO WHEN YOU TAKE AWAY A FREE TOOL FOR SMALL MAKERS TO USE TO ADVERTISE, YOU’RE YOU’RE REALLY HURTING THE THE CULTURE OF THE COMMUNITY AND THE CULTURE OF SMALL BUSINESSES. AND IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOTE IF THE BAN HAPPENS TIKTOK IT WON’T GO DARK. HOWEVER, NEW USERS WON’T BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD THE APP AND UPDATES WON’T BE AVAILABLE,

Advertisement Trump will grant TikTok another 90-day extension in enforcement of sale-or-ban law Editorial Standards ⓘ

TikTok just got another lifeline from the White House, with President Donald Trump set to delay enforcement of the sale-or-ban law by another 90 days.Related video from January above: Social media strategist, business owner discuss impact of TikTok ban“President Trump will sign an additional Executive Order this week to keep TikTok up and running,” Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, said in a statement. “As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.”CNN has reached out to ByteDance and TikTok for comment.It’s been about five months since a law requiring TikTok to be banned in the United States unless it’s sold off by its China-based parent company technically went into effect. But thanks to President Donald Trump’s promises not to enforce the law, neither of those things have happened, aside from an approximately 14-hour blackout in January. Tuesday’s announcement marks Trump’s third extension of the ban.The announcement means that the app will remain accessible for its 170 million American users despite the legislation that passed last year with bipartisan support over concerns that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a U.S. national security risk. And it comes as both the United States and China seek leverage in tense trade talks, in which TikTok appears to have become a bargaining chip.The TikTok sale-or-ban law went into effect on January 19 after it was signed by former President Joe Biden last year. TikTok briefly took itself offline, sparking outcry from creators, but quickly came back after Trump signed an order delaying the ban’s enforcement by 75 days. It was one of his first acts as president, made in hopes of reaching a deal to keep the app “alive.”In April, a deal that would have transferred majority control of TikTok’s U.S. operations to American ownership was nearly finalized. But it fell apart after Trump announced additional tariffs on China, forcing the president to announce another 75-day delay to keep the app operational in the United States.“There are key matters to be resolved. Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law,” TikTok parent company ByteDance said after Trump’s tariff policy stalled progress on the deal in April.That pause was set to expire on June 19.Trump’s latest enforcement delay raises questions about the status of a deal that could secure TikTok’s long-term future in the United States. The Chinese government has offered little public indication that it would be willing to approve a sale beyond suggesting that any deal could not include TikTok’s “algorithm,” which has been called the app’s secret sauce.Tuesday’s announcement comes after the United States and China agreed on a framework to ease export controls, a move that’s expected to ease tensions and prevent further escalation of export and other restrictions between the two countries. It’s not clear whether a TikTok deal is included in the framework, but cooperation between the two sides could make an agreement to transfer control of the app to a U.S. buyer more likely.Earlier on Tuesday, Trump told reporters that a TikTok deal would “probably” require approval by the Chinese government and said, “I think we’ll get it.”“I think President Xi will ultimately approve it, yes,” the U.S. president added.The deal that had been in the making earlier this year would have involved several American venture capital funds, private equity firms and tech giants investing in a company that would control TikTok’s US operations. TikTok’s China-based owner, ByteDance, would have retained a 20% stake in the spinoff company — a key stipulation of the law.Several other high-profile bidders had also put their hands up to acquire the platform, including a group led by billionaire Frank McCourt and “Shark Tank”-famous investor Kevin O’Leary, Amazon, AI firm Perplexity and a separate group of investors that included YouTube and TikTok star Jimmy Donaldson, known online as MrBeast.It was Trump who first tried to ban TikTok during his previous administration, but he has said he changed his mind after he “got to use it.” TikTok CEO Shou Chew attended Trump’s inauguration, seated on stage alongside Cabinet secretaries and other tech CEOs.