The president of the land of free Donald Trump has issued an executive order giving ByteDance 90 days to either sell or spin off its TikTok business in the US.
“There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” Trump wrote in the order, which references national security concerns.
ByteDance is based in China, and the Trump administration has recently suggested that the company could share information about Americans with the Chinese government. The company has denied it does so.
The move gives TikTok a bit of a reprieve from Trump’s August 6th order that would have blocked all US transactions with ByteDance, TikTok’s parent corporation.
Trump administration says the EO is an effort to address the national emergency with respect to the information and communication technology supply chain.
Originally, TikTok had a September 20th deadline; now, it has until November 12th.
The latest executive order requires ByteDance to destroy any TikTok data from US users, and report to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States once all the data has been destroyed.
ByteDance must also destroy any data collected from TikTok precursor app Musical.ly, which the company bought in 2017.
This writer is also aware that the original order with the 45-day deadline didn’t include those requirements.
Twitter Inc had expressed interest to by out ByteDance shares and TikTok businessess in the United States.
The Executive Order comes barely weeks after Facebook launched a clone dubbed Insta Reels that was aimed at aiding the collapse of TikTok.
