President Trump has signed a new executive order that gives China’s ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off the US TikTok business. In the order, Trump says that there is “credible evidence” that ByteDance “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
This week’s executive order from Trump comes just over a week after a separate executive order indicated that all transactions between ByteDance and US companies would be banned in 45 days. As CNBC explains, this week’s order has widely been seen as good news for TikTok in comparison to last week’s.
“There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” the order reads.
The original order would have likely forced Apple to remove TikTok from the App Store, potentially around the entire world. The latest order buys more time for ByteDance to work out the details of the sale of TikTok’s United States operations to a US company such as Microsoft. The original deadline for such a deal was September 20, but ByteDance will now have until November 12.
Furthermore, as part of the new executive order, Trump says that ByteDance will destroy all TikTok data associated with United States users and inform the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States when this process is completed.
Even with this new executive order, TikTok is likely still planning a legal challenge to the Trump Administration’s efforts. Last week, ByteDance said that such an order from the US government shows “no adherence to the law.”
Meanwhile, Trump yesterday offered a response to concerns from Apple that a separate ban on WeChat could impact iPhone sales. Trump doubled down on the national security concerns and said a simple “whatever” to Apple’s concerns. As of right now, it appears that the original 45-day executive order still applies to Tencent.
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