Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for a third time, without clear legal basis

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 90 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.

Trump disclosed the executive order on the Truth Social platform Thursday morning.

''He's making an extension so we can get this deal done,'' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. ''It's wildly popular. He also wants to protect Americans' data and privacy concerns on this app. And he believes we can do both at the same time.''

It is the third time Trump has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — took effect. The second was in April when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump's tariff announcement.

It is not clear how many times Trump can — or will — keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance. While there is no clear legal basis for the extensions, so far there have been no legal challenges to fight them. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a ''warm spot for TikTok.''

TikTok praised Trump for signing an extension Thursday.

''We are grateful for President Trump's leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users and 7.5 million U.S. businesses that rely on the platform as we continue to work with Vice President Vance's Office,'' the company said in a statement.

As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but it has not faced a legal challenge in court — unlike many of Trump's other executive orders.

Jeremy Goldman, analyst at Emarketer, called TikTok's U.S situation a ''deadline purgatory.''

The whole thing ''is starting to feel less like a ticking clock and more like a looped ringtone. This political Groundhog Day is starting to resemble the debt ceiling drama: a recurring threat with no real resolution.''

That's not stopping TikTok from pushing forward with its platform, Forrester analyst Kelsey Chickering says.

''TikTok's behavior also indicates they're confident in their future, as they rolled out new AI video tools at Cannes this week,'' Chickering notes. ''Smaller players, like Snap, will try to steal share during this ‘uncertain time,' but they will not succeed because this next round for TikTok isn't uncertain at all.''

For now, TikTok continues to function for its 170 million users in the U.S., and tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle were persuaded to continue to offer and support the app, on the promise that Trump's Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them.

Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren't sure.

Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users' data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Trump administration is once again ''flouting the law and ignoring its own national security findings about the risks'' posed by a China-controlled TikTok.

''An executive order can't sidestep the law, but that's exactly what the president is trying to do,'' Warner added.