TikTok, one of the most popular social media platforms in the United States, has a little more than three months to reach a deal divesting it of Chinese ownership before it goes dark.
The app boasts roughly 170 million monthly active users across the country but faces extinction by May if it fails to sell operations to a U.S. buyer.
Shortly after his inauguration ceremony on Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving TikTok a 75-day lifeline before the ban is implemented, putting the long-term future of the platform in limbo.
Here’s everything you need to know about the challenges and opportunities TikTok is facing.
Trump’s plan
Trump’s most recent plan for TikTok centers on demands that the U.S. be given a 50% ownership position in the app under any proposed deal.
“I think the U.S. should get half of TikTok. … I think we would have a joint venture,” Trump said on Monday. “I may not or may do the deal. TikTok is worthless, worthless, if I don’t approve it. I learned that from the people that own it. If I don’t do the deal, it’s worth nothing; if I do the deal, it’s worth a trillion dollars.”
Despite Trump’s angling to work out a deal to create joint ownership of the app, China has been adamant it doesn’t want to do anything that would put its access to data gathered by the app at risk. However, it is the fact that TikTok is gathering information about its users that can be funneled directly back to the Chinese Communist Party that pushed lawmakers to deem it a national security threat in the first place.
How did we get to a ban?
Due to national security concerns, former President Joe Biden signed legislation into law last year that placed a ban on TikTok, a Chinese-owned platform, unless it was sold to a U.S. company. ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, initially refused to consider selling operations to an American owner.
After TikTok appealed the ban, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in early January upholding the law. The ban went into effect over the weekend as Trump prepared to take office.
With Trump’s Day One executive order, the company and the Trump administration now have an interim period, until early April, to hammer out a deal that satisfies both parties.
Despite his position as the chief executive, it’s not clear Trump has the authority to extend the deadline Congress set for ByteDance.
While most of the president’s Day One executive orders were popular among his base and with Republicans in Congress, his staunch allies who made their names as China hawks have balked at his decision to try and undercut the bipartisan law.
“The law was enacted to address the very real national security risks posed by TikTok’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said in a joint statement criticizing the order. “Delaying its enforcement is a reckless abdication of responsibility.”
US buyers for TikTok
Several prominent businessmen’s names have been floated in connection with acquiring TikTok. Among them are two Trump allies, X founder Elon Musk and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison — both of whom Trump gave his blessing on Tuesday to take over the app.
Neither Ellison nor Musk have publicly stated interest in buying TikTok.
Several other potential buyers have come forward with proposals.
Project Liberty Founder Frank McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary announced a $20 billion bid for TikTok in early January.
However, in recent days, O’Leary has expressed concern that some of Trump’s ideas for a deal are inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The pair are continuing to negotiate a deal with the Trump administration, per their comments to CNBC this week.
Media personality MrBeast became the latest person to throw his bid for TikTok in the ring on Tuesday. Along with a group of wealthy investors, MrBeast said “have an offer ready for you, we want to buy the platform” in a video posted to TikTok.
Concerns about the app
One of the primary reasons TikTok was outlawed in 2024 was because many lawmakers were concerned about the platform’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Because the Chinese government has a controlling “Golden Share” in the app, critics believed it gave an adversarial government dangerous leverage to use TikTok to spy on millions of U.S. users, many of them minors. On the basis of such claims, China has been accused of posing a national security threat to the U.S.
In recent months, Trump has pushed back against those concerns, arguing the U.S. should focus on addressing much “bigger problems” posed by China than the social media app.
“If China is going to get information about young kids out of it, to be honest, I think we have bigger problems than that. But you know, when you take a look at telephones that are made in China and all the other things that are made in China, military equipment made in China, TikTok, I think TikTok is not their biggest problem,” he told reporters Monday.
Other critics have argued that the app’s algorithm has been designed to pose a threat to the health and mental well-being of young people, many of whom spend countless hours on the social media platform.
Support for TikTok
The primary basis of support for opposing a ban on TikTok has centered on concerns it represents a “ban” on speech.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has argued that outlawing his app in the U.S. violates freedom of speech. His concerns have been echoed by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) both saying a TikTok ban is unconstitutional, citing First Amendment rights.
“They tell you this is about China. About security. About safety. That’s a lie. This is about control. About fear. About silencing you. A government that can ban an app, can ban a book. A government that can silence a platform, can silence a person. Today, it’s TikTok. Tomorrow, it’s your news. Next week, it’s your voice,” Paul warned in a recent press release.
Other Republican critics of a ban, led by Trump, say the app should be kept because it has helped the GOP reach young voters.
The president went so far as to suggest on Tuesday that he might download TikTok on his phone.
“I think I’ll get it right now. By the way, again we won the young vote. I think I won it through TikTok, so I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” he said.
Lawmakers flip on their stance
Before his push to save TikTok, Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok during his first term. The ban cited national security concerns that faced challenges in court.
Biden also shifted on the app. In 2021, he revoked Trump’s TikTok executive order before signing legislation in 2024 that put the current ban in place. Days before he left office, he announced that would not do anything to enforce the ban as the divestment deadline loomed in a final reversal, winding up at his original position.
Other key members of Trump’s administration, including national security adviser Mike Waltz, have become enthusiastic about making a deal to preserve the app after previously backing efforts to ban it.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who voted to ban TikTok last year, has likewise backpedaled opposition to the platform.
“We know a lot of things are up in the air, with the TikTok ban scheduled to go into effect this weekend,” he said last week. “But everyone — the Biden administration, the incoming Trump administration, even the Supreme Court — should continue working to find a way [to get] an American buyer for TikTok, so we can both free the app from any influence and control from the Chinese Communist Party, and keep TikTok going, which will preserve the jobs of millions of creators.”