President Trump offers another opportunity to rescue TikTok from being banned in the US.

      TikTok is set to receive yet another extension from a possible ban in the US if an agreement regarding the company's domestic operations is not finalized. This was confirmed by President Donald Trump, who expressed his desire to conclude the deal but indicated he would be open to granting additional time if necessary.

      “Maybe I shouldn’t mention this, but I have a bit of fondness for TikTok. TikTok is — it's quite intriguing, and it will be safeguarded,” Trump reportedly stated to NBC. “It will be very well protected. But if it needs an extension, I would be ready to provide one. It might not be necessary.”

      The threat of a nationwide ban has been hanging over TikTok due to concerns about US citizens' data potentially being accessed by the Chinese government. The proposed solution is to sell the company's US operations to a domestic business; however, no concrete developments have occurred regarding this plan.

      Why is this important?

      Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

      In January, TikTok went offline in the US after the Supreme Court upheld a decision for a nationwide ban. Alongside TikTok, several other apps owned by its parent company, ByteDance, were also removed from the app stores of Apple and Google.

      The ban came after TikTok was instructed to separate its US operations from its parent company based in China. Several companies, including Walmart, Oracle, and Microsoft, reportedly showed interest in acquiring TikTok's US operations, but a deal could not be finalized by the deadline.

      Shortly after the nationwide outage began, President Trump granted a 90-day extension and lifted the ban. A few months later, he extended the deadline further to facilitate the completion of the deal, which has yet to occur.

      Interestingly, the recent imposition of sweeping tariffs by President Trump, which primarily impacted China, hindered any potential TikTok deal. “A deal was agreed upon as of Wednesday, but the newly imposed tariffs on China created an unexpected obstacle,” according to an NBC News report.

      What’s next for TikTok?

      Olivier Bergeron / Unsplash

      There is a lengthy and varied list of parties interested in acquiring TikTok. As reported by Reuters, Amazon was one of the entities that made a last-minute bid for the social media platform's US segment. A consortium led by Tim Stokely, the owner of the adult social media site OnlyFans, was also in contention.

      Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is also vying for the popular social media platform in collaboration with software giant Oracle. The People’s Bid for TikTok is another group seeking to purchase the app, backed by notable figures such as Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, and World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee.

      Further interest in the multi-billion-dollar deal has been shown by YouTube creator Jimmy “Mr. Beast” Donaldson and Roblox founder David Baszucki. In the realm of big tech, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Perplexity, and Walmart are all poised to secure TikTok's local operations.