Over 10 days ago, US President Donald Trump signed two executive orders for the impending ban on TikTok and WeChat. He has just signed another executive order which affects the former. This time, he is giving TikTok owner ByteDance 90 more days to sell or divest its US business.
This can be seen as a 90-day extension to the app’s ban, which was to happen on 20 September. With the new executive order, this has now been effectively extended to 12 November. This can then be extended by up to another 30 days. In addition to selling its US business, the executive order also demands that ByteDance destroys all data collected on US users.
Overall, this is like some good news for TikTok, as well as its vast user base. But ultimately, it still means that the app will have to be sold to another US company if it was to continue existing in the country. So on that front, the company is likely to continue the legal discourse it was reportedly taking.
Oddly enough, this new executive order is laser-focused on TikTok alone. This means that WeChat is still under the original 45-day deadline. Which is bad news for any phone maker that’s not based in China, but Apple particularly could see a 30% drop in sales.
(Source: US Treasury [PDF] via CNBC)
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