Is Trump going to save TikTok… again?
TikTok’s future in the US is once again in limbo – but this time, fewer in both Wall Street and Washington are taking the threat seriously.
In a move that surprised few but frustrated many, President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to delay a divest-or-ban deadline for the third time in the last six months, granting the Chinese-owned viral app another 90-day reprieve.
It’s the latest twist in a long geopolitical saga that has tested tech regulatory hurdles, trade policies and the boundaries of executive power – all while leaving investors and rival platforms stuck in a holding pattern.
“What ban? There is nothing looming about the potential TikTok ban anymore”, said Kelsey Chickering, analyst at Forrester.
“They will get yet another extension from the Trump administration on June 19th. TikTok’s behaviour also indicates they’re confident in their future, as they rolled out new AI video tools at Cannes this week”.
Business as (un)usual
Despite bipartisan support for legislation that would force ByteDance – TikTok’s Chinese partner firm – to divest its US operations, Trump has repeatedly chosen delay over enforcement.
A deal to spin the app into a US-owned firm seemed nearly complete this spring, with investment giants like General Atlantic and Blackstone ready to take a majority stake. ByteDance reportedly would have retained under 20 per cent.
But just days after this plan was inked, it yet again collapsed, fuelled by Trump’s announcement of sweeping new tariffs on Chinese goods.
In response, Beijing rescinded its approval of the deal, while ByteDance informed the White House that the plan was off.
Sources have indicated that the White House now hopes to revive the deal once tensions subside. In the meantime, TikTok has received yet another lifeline.
For the social media video app’s business partners, the signals remain clear: the firm is not behaving like an app preparing for an American blackout.
Just last month in New York and this week in Cannes, the tech giant has been aggressively pitching advertisers and showing new tools.
Meanwhile, in the UK, TikTok announced last week that it is to create more than 500 UK jobs and open a second office in London, it has been revealed.
The Chinese-owned social media firm has confirmed its UK workforce will expand to 3,000 by the end of 2025 and it will open a new 135,000 sq ft office in London’s Barbican.
“We are just very confident where we are going, and so are over one billion users with us”, argued Khartoon Weiss, TikTok’s vice president of global business solutions.
A geopolitical ping pong
This isn’t the first time the app has found itself caught between two superpowers.
In 2020, Trump issued an executive order to ban the app on national security grounds, accusing it of enabling the Chinese communist party to access US user data.
But enforcement remained weak, and by 2023, Trump softened his tone, even crediting TikTok for helping him reach a younger audience.
Still, Congress passed a law last year requiring ByteDance to divest or face a ban, which the Supreme Court upheld in January.
The law gave the app until January 19th to comply, but Trump extended it to April, and then June. Now, he’s poised to extend again until September.
Critics have said this defies the letter of the law: “This is 100 per cent illegal”, said senator Chris Murphy. “Trump seems to be biding time to work out a deal where one of his allies takes over the app and turns it into a MAGA propaganda machine”.
Others have been more focused on the long term precedent. “Tying national security enforcement to trade leverage is a dangerous road”, said Senator Mark Warner.
And, Michigan republican John Moolenaar, chair of a house committee on China, said that any deal that keeps ByteDance in control “wouldn’t just miss the mark – it would violate the law”.
A lack of enforcement
Despite the tough talk, many in Washington see little political will to follow through.
Trump’s support among young voters, bolstered in part by his success on TikTok, is one factor. The other is the practical hurdle of shutting down a wildly popular app used by over 150m American citizens.
Meanwhile, US firms and investors continue to circle, with ByteDance’s current US backers, such as KKR and Susquehanna, standing to lose out if a forced ban undermines the app’s valuation.
And with the app increasingly woven into American advertising, agencies and marketing are also showing no signs of pulling back.
Rivals like Snap may try to take advantage of this uncertainty, yet few analysts believe they will succeed: “Smaller players will try to steal share during this uncertain time”, Chickering added, “but they will not succeed because this next round for TikTok isn’t uncertain at all”.
“It’s about broader US-China relationships”, added Jennifer Huddleston of the Cato Institute. “And a larger debate about foreign tech companies operating in the US”.
ByteDance, for its part, has said little publicly, other than to confirm that “key matters remain to be resolved”, and that any deal “will be subject to approval under Chinese law”.
The next deadline is expected, but few expect that to stick either.
One analyst told the New York Times: “we may find ourselves in Groundhog day 75 days from now, unless the tariffs are resolved”.