The TikTok ban in January left many creators and users spinning, and when it was reinstated just 24 hours after, many were not left with a sense of trust in the government’s promise that they would continue to find a way for the app to operate in the US. This is because the legislation that led to its original ban, passed Congress in 2024 on a bipartisan basis, is still in effect, and for good reason, and the app will likely go dark again soon, in fact as early as June.
When the original scandal and news broke, it was found that the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance was storing user data in a legally gray way and then allowing access to this data to the Chinese government, as in China this is compulsory for local companies. Since the Chinese government does not adhere to data protection laws, does not disclose what they do with the data they accumulate and refuses to forego this privileged access, US lawmakers decided to force the app’s hand by either banning it or forcing it to sell to a foreign company that would respect data privacy laws.
The US’s leverage was good, as TikTok has around 172 million users in the US which is a huge percentage of their user base, and its shop, which features mainly Chinese companies and brands like AliExpress and Temu is one of the most used features in the country, but this still does not seem to be enough to force ByteDance to sell (or anyone else to buy at the price they are setting) and users are getting annoyed by the tug of war.
The new TikTok extension and the impact that it will have
Despite the intentions of the original extension, aka to give the company time to sell, the results have not been as predicted and so the White House imposed a second 75-day extension earlier this month to try to make more time for a deal, but it is not going as expected.
President Trump posted on Truth Social that his administration was “working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK,” and that “tremendous progress” had been made, but reality seems to be quite different. ByteDance has made it clear that they will not sign any deal that would infringe on their intellectual property rights which is one of the major roadblocks to expedite a sale and the contentious relations that have developed between China and the US due to the president’s mounting tariffs are not helping the situation at all.
Even he was forced to acknowledge that China was not very happy about the reciprocal tariffs the White House had imposed, but decided to brush their upset over the situation by posting that “tariffs are the most powerful economic tool, and very important to our national security.” While this might be true, the tariffs over 100 percent on imports from each other seem to be escalating weekly and adding fodder to the fire, which is not conducive to a sale.
The situation is so tense that experts are now getting worried that there will be no solution in time for the extension to end and that the government will either close the app or be forced by users to capitulate, putting the US in a vulnerable position. But not all hope is lost just yet, Businessman and former “Shark Tank” panelist Kevin O’Leary, along with Dodgers co-owner Frank McCourt and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, has teamed up to make a bid for TikTok, branding their proposal as “The People’s Bid.”
In a recent interview, O’Leary explained that should ByteDance agree to sell, the new owners would likely have to develop a new algorithm from scratch, this is because the original recommendation engine, central to TikTok’s dominance may not be part of the deal, what might be transferred are the brand name, user accounts, and existing content.
He emphasized that securing a sale before the expiration of a second extension is crucial as failure to act in time could prompt legal action by an attorney general, possibly triggering enforcement of penalties. According to O’Leary’s estimates, the resulting costs could reach $800 billion annually, an amount he argues would be unsustainable for any company listed on the S&P 500.