President Donald Trump announced Sunday that an agreement involving ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, is expected to be finalized before the fast-approaching weekend deadline, Reuters reports.
TikTok, the widely used short-form video platform with 170 million users in the United States, is at the center of a major national security debate. Back in January, Trump issued a deadline of April 5 for TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese entity or face potential prohibition under a 2024 law designed to protect American interests.
“We have a lot of potential buyers,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night. “There’s tremendous interest in TikTok,” he added, and shared his preference by saying, “I’d like to see TikTok remain alive.”
Initially, TikTok was expected to shut down on January 19 under legislation signed during the presidency of Joe Biden, mandating that ByteDance divest from the app within a 270-day timeframe or face a ban.
Although Trump initially favored banning TikTok during his earlier time in office, he later reversed course on the campaign trail, vowing to “save TikTok.”
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