Earlier this week, when it seemed as though TikTok’s fate in the US would actually be decided by April 5th, everyone — from Amazon to the founder of OnlyFans — was coming out of the woodwork to buy it.
As it turns out, none of them had a chance. And now, thanks to President Donald Trump’s tariff war, no one may get to buy TikTok.
People familiar with the matter tell me that, despite all of the bids for the app, the White House was only seriously considering an Oracle-led consortium, which included many of ByteDance’s biggest investors who were set to roll their stakes into a new, US entity.
The proposal, which would have licensed the app’s algorithm from China and shuffled some shareholder money around to make TikTok look more independent from ByteDance, was set to be announced before President Trump went nuclear on tariffs. As others have reported and I’ve independently confirmed, his tariff announcement on Wednesday torched any immediate chance of the TikTok proposal being blessed by the Chinese government.
On Friday, less than an hour after Trump said he was pushing back the clock on banning TikTok by another 75 days to finish working out a deal, ByteDance issued its first statement on the situation, saying that “any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law.”
After suggesting on Thursday that China would approve a TikTok deal in exchange for tariff relief, the president seemed less confident on Friday: “We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!).”
Anyone who has been closely following this tortured saga that is the TikTok ban is exhausted. Now, five years after he first tried to ban it, Trump has seemingly torpedoed the plan that was finally going to keep TikTok running.
His friend Larry Ellison was going to secure more business for Oracle by reviving the broad strokes of the Project Texas security proposal that was made to the previous administration (albeit this time with fewer security guarantees, since this administration doesn’t really care about national security threats the app may or may not pose). TikTok’s investors and employees were finally going to get certainty about the app’s fate. ByteDance was going to effectively stay in the driver’s seat while maintaining control of its algorithm. And Trump was going to get to say that he saved TikTok.
TikTok gets to continue operating in the US for a while longer, thanks to Trump’s Department of Justice not enforcing a ban that was passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court. TikTok’s US hosting providers, including Apple, Google, and Oracle, are seemingly still okay with this situation despite the fact that they are very much breaking the law. And unless Trump ultimately eases on tariffs against China, TikTok may end up banned after all.
Some noteworthy job changes in the tech world:
As always, I want to hear from you, especially if you have feedback on this issue or a story tip. Respond here or ping me securely on Signal.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
