TikTok Given Another Seven Days To Sell Its US Operations

Almost like some of the smooth dance moves you can see on the social network, TikTok has again narrowly dodged what could be the fatal deadline that would end it, at least in the US. As the new November 27 deadline approaches, owner ByteDance was given another week to convince the US government not to ban it outright. That remains a quest of Herculean proportions as the Chinese company's multiple proposals have been repeatedly rejected already.

TikTok was supposed to go dark in the US on November 12, the initial deadline set by US President Donald Trump for the company to come up with a proposal to sell its US operations to a US owner. Whether it was because of the elections or not, that date approached with no further word from the government, leading TikTok to wonder if they were miraculously forgotten. It wasn't but it at least got a 15-day reprieve.

Those fifteen days will be over on Friday and yet no resolution has been reached. It seems, however, that the Trump administration is willing to draw the uncertainty out as long as it can and filed for another seven days for ByteDance to find a buyer. The problem is that it seems that the US government is still not satisfied with the terms.

For quite a few months already, TikTok's owner has been in talks with Walmart, Oracle, and other US investors to create an entity that will handle the US side of TikTok's operations, including the critical data of American users. ByteDance revealed it already made four other proposals before November 10 and an insider tip claims it submitted yet another one. The extension is supposedly meant to give the US Treasury Department time to review that proposal.

This, of course, leaves TikTok's fate still hanging in the balance, especially given the current uncertainty in the US political scene. The Trump administration itself, however, is also running out of time before it hands over the reins to a new government. Previous attempts to indirectly curtail TikTok's operations were already shot down in federal courts, leaving this divestment strategy as its last recourse.