What you need to know
- ByteDance has been granted a seven-day extension to sell its share of TikTok.
Reported by Reuters, the Trump administration has granted ByteDance, the company who owns TikTok (opens in new tab), a seven-day extension of an order that directs the company to sell the short-form video app. The new extension comes after a multitude of other extensions as the company works to sell off its ownership in the app.
The administration previously had granted ByteDance a 15-day extension of the order issued in August, which was set to expire Friday. President Donald Trump on Aug. 14 had directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days. The new deadline is Dec. 4, TikTok said in the filing. Under pressure from the U.S. government, ByteDance has been in talks for months to finalize a deal with Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to shift TikTok's U.S. assets into a new entity.
According to the report, the extension was granted to review a "revised submission" from ByteDance to the United States Treasury Department.
TikTok declined to comment beyond the filing. ByteDance has made a new proposal aimed at addressing the U.S. government's concerns, said a person briefed on the matter who declined to detail that proposal. A U.S. Treasury representative said the extension was granted to review a recently received "revised submission".
So far, attempts by the United States government to block access to the app in the country have been struck down by federal judges.
Separate restrictions on TikTok from the U.S. Commerce Department have been blocked by federal courts, including transaction curbs that TikTok said could effectively ban the app's use in the United States. A Commerce Department ban on Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google offering TikTok for download for new U.S. users that had been set to take effect on Sept. 27 has also been blocked.
Today's news basically points to the same result as we've seen since talk of the TikTok (opens in new tab) ban began. The app will continue to live in the United States, for now.
Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.
