Donald Trump has long presented himself as a master of dealmaking, but in looking to arrange an acquisition of TikTok‘s parent company, he has now given himself three deadline extensions. On Thursday, the president announced an executive order once again delaying the enforcement of a law that would ban the video app in the U.S. if it is not sold by China’s ByteDance.
“I’ve just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days (September 17, 2025),” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!” In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt underscored Trump’s affinity for the app, which he had previously wanted to ban but pledged to save during the 2024 campaign. (He now has 15 million followers on the platform, though his account has not been used since the election.) “As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark,” Leavitt said. “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.”
The law that Trump’s orders have circumvented, signed by Joe Biden and upheld by the Supreme Court just before Trump’s second term began, is the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a product of concerns from Congress that foreign-owned apps such as TikTok could be used to spy on or politically manipulate Americans. On Jan. 20, his first day in office, Trump ordered the initial delay of a ban after the app briefly went dark — then, in April, he was forced to approve another 75-day delay because a potential deal to spin off a majority of TikTok to a U.S. company controlled by American investors unraveled when China balked at his tariffs on global trade. Any sale of TikTok by ByteDance is likely impossible without approval from Beijing.
“We are grateful for President Trump’s leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users and 7.5 million U.S. businesses that rely on the platform as we continue to work with Vice President Vance’s Office,” TikTok said in a statement. The company has repeatedly praised Trump for keeping it operational in the U.S. and maintains that it presents no security risk to the country.
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For now, then, American creators who rely on the platform for their livelihoods — and the many more who just like to spend hours a day scrolling the app — have been granted another reprieve. It’s not clear whether the administration is any closer to brokering a deal for TikTok than they were before the last one blew up in April, but it seems Trump will have no problem putting off the ban indefinitely. Unlike many of his other executive orders since returning to the Oval Office, the delays have not been met with challenges in the courts.
Meanwhile on Thursday — the Juneteenth federal holiday — Trump criticized The Wall Street Journal, writing on Truth Social that the newspaper has “No Idea what my thoughts are concerning Iran!” He also lashed out at Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, for not lowering interest rates as he wanted. “He is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in Government, and the Fed Board is complicit,” Trump fumed. With the escalation of a Middle East war and an economic slowdown at home, it’s perhaps no wonder that the president is pushing off the TikTok question for another time.
