Advertisement

President Trump Has Approved a TikTok Deal That Will Delay the App's Ban

From Seventeen

  • TikTok was expected to be unavailable in app stores as of Sunday thanks to the ban by the US government.

  • On Saturday, however, President Trump approved a deal between TikTok and two American companies, delaying the ban.

TikTok isn't going anywhere, at least for now. Despite concerns that the app was going to get banned thanks to alleged security threats being touted by the US government, TikTok will live to see another day.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump approved a deal between TikTok's parent company ByteDance, tech company Oracle, and Walmart. According to the New York Times, the three companies will help to create a US-based company called TikTok Global. While many were hoping the Chinese company would outright sell TikTok to a US company, this deal does place "more equity in the service into the hands of American companies and investors."

"I have given the deal my blessing," Trump told reporters in a briefing on Saturday. "If they get it done that’s great, if they don’t that’s fine too." Despite Trump's approval, though, the deal still needs to be formally approved by the administration. It also isn't a guarantee that Walmart, Oracle, and ByteDance will agree to the terms in order to allow the deal to move forward.

In the meantime, the Commerce Department has agreed to delay the ban of TikTok from US app stores for one week. The ban was supposed to go into effect on Sunday night, prohibiting anyone who didn't already have TikTok on their phone from downloading it. Now, it seems like they are giving the deal more time to move forward.

On Saturday, TikTok made a statement about the situation. "We are pleased that the proposal by TikTok, Oracle, and Walmart will resolve the security concerns of the US Administration and settle questions around TikTok's future in the US," they wrote on Twitter.

Still, this doesn't mean TikTok is completely in the clear and over the next couple weeks, as the details of the detail continue to get discussed, we will have a better idea of what we can actually expect for the future of TikTok.

Follow Carolyn on Instagram.

You Might Also Like