Trump postpones TikTok ban for another 75 days

President Donald Trump has extended TikTok’s deadline to sell to a non-Chinese owner by 75 days, announcing on his Truth Social platform that a TikTok deal “requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed.”

The app’s owner, ByteDance, originally had until April 5 to sell to a non-Chinese owner or lose its over 170 million American users. This deadline resulted from a 75-day extension of former president Biden’s original Jan. 19 deadline, when the app went dark in the US for about 12 hours.

“We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!),” Trump said in the post.

Since the first extension in January, much has occurred. 

Those on TikTok flooded to another Chinese social media app, RedNote, and Duolingo reported a 216% increase in US users learning Mandarin. As of late March, there are around 800,000 daily active users on the platform—a decrease from its peak of 1.3 million in January, but still up 114% from December 2024.

The relationship between social media and its users irrevocably changed. With Meta’s changing policies for Facebook and Instagram to match X, formerly Twitter, while users have migrated to other platforms such as Bluesky. One of these changes that saw Meta replacing its fact-checking feature with community notes, is already an internationally controversial feature. When X added community notes, the European Commission opened formal proceedings to assess if the platform breached the Digital Services Act.

Other companies may be in the process of creating new social media. In late February, The Information reported that Instagram chief Adam Mosseri hinted at a concept of a separate app focusing primarily on Reels. However, no updates have been made since.

Meanwhile there have been a multitude of offers to purchase TikTok from the Chinese internet technology company, ByteDance. Here’s a short-form cheat sheet: 

Amazon’s last-minute bid

Amazon submitted a 11th-hour bid for TikTok in a letter submitted to vice president JD Vance and Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday. Anonymous Trump administration officials confirmed to The New York Times that the White House doesn’t believe the bid will succeed, but regardless, Amazon’s shares rose more than 2% on news of the offer. The bid continues Amazon’s efforts to build an in-house social media network. The company acquired Twitch in 2014 and Goodreads the year before, and attempted to launch Inspire, a TikTok-similar video platform that was deleted from the Amazon app in February.

Oracle’s algorithmic-leasing plan

Trump reviewed a plan in which Oracle, a cloud computing company that provides back-end technical support for TikTok, and about a dozen others, possibly including private equity firm Silver Lake, would pitch a joint offer to ByteDance. This deal would maintain Chinese ownership of TikTok’s algorithms while Oracle ensures the Chinese government couldn’t access American users’ data. Oracle chief technology officer Larry Ellison is a close ally of Trump and a billionaire Republican donor.

Andreessen Horowitz wants in with Oracle

Following the pattern of its transformative early investments in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Airbnb, Andreessen Horowitz wants to contribute an investment to buy out TikTok’s Chinese investors via Oracle’s bid. The venture capital firm invested $400 million into Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, now known as X.

AppLovin’s advertising advantage

Mirroring Amazon’s last-minute timing, AppLovin submitted a TikTok bid on Wednesday endorsed by billionaire casino magnate Steve Wynn. The mobile tech company, which aids developers on app marketing and advertising, uses AI-powered user data analytics to customize advertisements. If successful, it would build a new TikTok algorithm. AppLovin also vowed to the Trump administration to address TikTok’s national security concerns if the bid is approved. 

Blackstone is still evaluating

While private equity firm Blackstone hasn’t announced an individual bid, it’s evaluating a stake in TikTok. It would join a group of ByteDance’s non-Chinese shareholders led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic to bid on TikTok’s U.S. operations, according to Reuters and The New York Times.

From OnlyFans to TikTok

The founder of online adult content site OnlyFans, Tim Stokely, submitted a bid through his social media startup company Zoop. It partnered with The Hbar Foundation, a cryptocurrency company, and aims to stray from traditional social media and catalyze a creator-first social media structure.

Other possible players

Since the announcement of a possible TikTok ban, Mr Beast, Perplexity AI, Project Liberty, Bobby Kotick, Doug McMillon, Microsoft and Rumble have reportedly submitted bids, proposed mergers or expressed interest in buying TikTok. One of the major players in Project Liberty’s bid, Tomicah Tillemann, joined The PR Week podcast recently to discuss the offer.