Donald Trump has said TikTok will “most likely” be handed a 90-day reprieve from a possible ban – just a day before the company said it would “go dark”.
Legislation was passed last April forcing the social media platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, to be sold or be banned by 19 January.
While President Joe Biden said he does not intend to enforce it, ByteDance said the app “will be forced to go dark” on Sunday after a Supreme Court ruling unanimously upheld the ban.
Speaking to NBC News‘ Meet The Press moderator Kristen Welker on Saturday however, the president-elect said he was considering giving TikTok more time to find a buyer.
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Mr Trump told Sky’s US partner network in a phone interview: “I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at.
“The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation.
“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”
Under the bipartisan law on TikTok – signed by Mr Biden – the president can grant a one-time extension of 90 days under three conditions:
• There is a path to divestiture of the app
• There is “significant progress” toward executing a sale
• There are in place “the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension”
No legal agreements on the sale of TikTok to a non-Chinese owner have been made public, and Mr Trump did not say if he was aware of any recent progress toward a sale.
CNBC later reported Perplexity AI made a bid for the app’s parent company on Saturday to allow it to merge with TikTok US and create a new entity, which would also include New Capital Partners.
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During his first term in the White House, Mr Trump attempted to ban TikTok as well as the Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat but was blocked by the courts. It was later revoked by Mr Biden.
Last year, he briefly met with the app’s chief executive Shou Zi Chew, who will attend the inauguration on Monday.
He’s expected to sit with fellow tech executives Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, a Trump transition official told NBC.
And on Friday, Mr Chew thanked the president-elect for his efforts to keep TikTok running and for standing against “against arbitrary censorship”.
It comes as the White House called TikTok’s threat to shut down its app on Sunday “a stunt”, while the platform called for greater “clarity and assurance” about potential legal issues.
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday.
“We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.”
