TikTok gets short extension before it must be sold
“This extension will provide the parties and the Committee additional time to resolve this case in a manner that complies with the Order,” Treasury said in a statement.
TikTok’s future in the United States has been uncertain since President Trump signed a pair of orders in August that would have banned the app in the country and would force ByteDance to sell its U.S. assets. The order that would have banned TikTok already had been blocked by a pair of court decisions, but ByteDance would still need to sell TikTok under the second order.
ByteDance has been in talks with U.S. companies Oracle and Walmart to spin off TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new company, with investment from the American firms. Trump, who has been instrumental in the government push against TikTok, gave the deal his tentative blessing in September.
But then negotiations between ByteDance and the government seemed to stall, leading to the company filing a court petition this week to try to slow the forced sale.
U.S. officials have said the company, which has millions of U.S. users, is a threat to national security, an assertion that company has rejected. But the proposed actions to force a change of ownership of TikTok have met resistance in federal courts, where judges have suggested the Trump administration may have overreached in its order. The Commerce Department confirmed in a Federal Register notice Thursday that the ban order would not go into effect as scheduled because of the injunctions.
If ByteDance doesn’t reach a CFIUS-approved deal by the new deadline, the Treasury can sue the Chinese conglomerate but it’s unclear what action it might take. The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
