Donald Trump has said he will “most likely” give the Chinese-owned TikTok app a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban in the US after he takes office on Monday morning.
The incoming president said on Saturday, in an interview with NBC News, that he was considering the extension on a Sunday deadline laid down for the parent company of the wildly popular app to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese-buyer or face a ban under US law.
“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said in the phone interview.
“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he said.
I was thinking this would be an easy PR win for Trump to unban it, but now I’m not as sure. He probably has too many oligarchs in his ear that are dying to own a piece of tiktok or its market share that they would encourage him to ban it (assuming tiktok would not let themselves be owned by an American company).