President Trump's EO gives Apple the green light to keep TikTok in its app store
But the countdown clock continues to tick for TikTok.
It seems even with the looming cloud of a U.S. ban, TikTok is still going to be around. At least for now.
If this is giving you a feeling of déjà vu, you’re not alone. This whole “TikTok is about to get banned” thing has been bouncing around since 2019, going back to concerns about user data, Chinese ownership, and national security.
It got real for the app when the Supreme Court upheld the decision to ban the App effective from January 19, 2025. TikTok briefly disappeared, only to be reinstated 12 hours later after President Trump’s executive order delayed the ban for 75 days.
After that brief shutdown in January, TikTok wasn’t available for download on the App Store until February 13, when Apple received a letter from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi saying: “You’re good to go.”
Since then, the political tug-of-war has only gotten messier.
Now, the initial 75-day period given to TikTok to find a buyer or face a ban in the U.S. has elapsed, and everyone is back to panic mode, including Apple which earlier put the app back up on its store.
Fortunately, for Apple, there's a green light to keep TikTok in its store for at least another 75 days – thanks to another executive order by President Trump that gives ByteDance (TikTok's parent company) more time to sell off TikTok’s U.S. operations.
Techloy
Just days before this latest extension, Trump unveiled a staggering 54% in cumulative tariffs on China. But in a surprising twist, he hinted that he might take those tariffs back if ByteDance sells the app. “Maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done,” he said. Classic Trump.
What’s interesting is that Apple’s kind of stuck in the middle of all of this. There's no official statement from Apple, but internally, it seems they’re just trying to avoid legal landmines while also not upsetting hundreds of millions of users who open TikTok more often than its Messages app.
So, for now, TikTok lives on. But the countdown clock continues to tick. ByteDance has 75 days to make a move: Either sell TikTok’s U.S. business or risk watching it vanish from American phones forever.
Editing by Kelechi Edeh and Loy Okezie.
