TikTok is running out of time to sell its U.S. operations and President Donald Trump has ruled out the possibility of an extension. On Thursday, September 10, Trump (via CNN) told a group of reporters before boarding Air Force One that if TikTok doesn’t secure a U.S. buyer before the imminent deadline, it will be banned.
“We’ll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons or it will be sold. There will be no extension of the TikTok deadline,” Trump said.
TikTok’s deadline itself has remained an open question due to a series of conflicting announcements and statements by the Trump administration. The timeline was further complicated by a subsequent order signed by Trump on August 14th that extended the deadline to mid-November. However, yesterday Trump explicitly said TikTok only has until September 15th next week to finalize a deal.
We’ve reached out to TikTok for a comment and we’ll update the story when we hear back.
TikTok’s efforts to hand over its operations in the U.S. and a bunch of other countries have continued to face roadblocks over the past few weeks. Most recently, negotiations to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations said to have hit another critical snag as bidders scramble to figure out ways to comply with China’s updated export rules.
Earlier this week, a Bloomberg report claimed that there’s little chance of TikTok completing a regulatory review and approving an agreement with any of the potential parties — Microsoft and Oracle — before the deadline.
Last month, TikTok, which is owned by China-based startup Bytedance, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration accusing it of violating due process protections and offering no evidence for its claims that the video app poses a national security threat.
“The [Trump] administration ignored our extensive efforts to address its concerns, which we conducted fully and in good faith,” TikTok said at the time in a statement. “We do not take suing the government lightly, however, we feel we have no choice but to take action to protect our rights and the rights of our community and employees.”
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