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President-elect Donald Trump said it is “possible” to extend the deadline for ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to abandon the video app that faces a national ban that will take effect on Sunday.
In an interview with NBC News, Trump said he was considering granting a 90-day extension to the deadline. His comments come after another day TikTok warned that 170 million of its customers would face power outages after the Supreme Court on Friday upheld a waiver or ban law that Congress passed last year to address security concerns of the country related to China.
“A 90-day extension is very likely, because it’s appropriate,” Trump said. “We have to look at it carefully. It is a very big situation. . . If I decide to do that, I will probably announce it on Monday.”
On Friday, Trump he said he spoke with President Xi Jinping and discussed TikTok with the Chinese leader. Chinese state media said the two leaders spoke but did not specify whether TikTok was part of the conversation.
The Biden administration on Friday said it would leave decisions about implementing the law, which will take effect at midnight on Saturday eastern, to the incoming Trump administration.
That means companies that provide video platforms — including Apple, Google and Oracle — must decide whether to risk a breach between midnight and Trump’s inauguration on Monday. .
TikTok said that the Biden administration’s statements “failed to provide the necessary clarification and assurance to service providers essential to keeping TikTok accessible to more than 170 million Americans”.
It also warned that the video service would be “blacked out” on January 19 unless the Biden administration “immediately issues a clear statement to the satisfaction of the most important service providers who ensure that it is not installed hand”.
In a strongly partisan vote last March, Congress passed legislation that required ByteDance to divest TikTok to avoid a nationwide ban on the app.
Lawmakers and US defense officials believe that having the app in China poses a national security risk because it could be used for espionage and disinformation by the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok has denied that the Chinese government has any influence over the app.
During his first term, Trump issued an order to ban TikTok from operating in the United States, but it was blocked by the courts at the last minute. In early 2024, he came out against the congressional divest-or-ban initiative on the grounds that it would help Facebook, which banned him from its social media platform for two years.
Trump has appointed several China hawks opposed to having China on TikTok in his administration, including Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret and congressman from Florida, who will serve as an adviser to national security.
Earlier this week, Waltz said the incoming administration would put “measures to prevent TikTok from going dark”, saying the law allowed for expansion as long as a “workable agreement” was on the table.
After TikTok’s statement on Friday, Rush Doshi, a former senior official of the Biden administration in China, wrote on X that the company was to blame.
“TikTok had 268 days to sell itself so it wasn’t used by China. That would have solved everything. But they didn’t even try. China wouldn’t let them,” said Doshi.
“Now, as time goes on, they want Biden to ignore the bipartisan SCOTUS (US Supreme Court) rule that backed it 9-0. If they shut down, it’s on them.”
