President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he had signed an executive order extending TikTok’s deadline by another 90 days, granting the company a fresh reprieve from a pending U.S. ban.
He made the announcement on Truth Social, posting images of the signed order. It’s the third time the deadline has been extended since Trump returned to office in January.
TikTok welcomed the news, releasing a statement shortly after the announcement.
“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,” a TikTok spokesperson said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News earlier this week that the president planned to extend the deadline in order to keep TikTok “up and running.”
“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,” Leavitt said.
This decision adds another chapter to the ongoing saga surrounding TikTok, the widely used video-sharing app owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance.
The White House maintains that national security concerns persist, particularly over the potential for the Chinese government to access U.S. user data.
However, the extension appears to conflict with the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed in April 2024, which requires ByteDance to sell its U.S. TikTok operations by January 19, 2025.