ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, is facing a looming September 15 deadline to sell its US operations or have them shut down by the Trump administration. On Thursday evening, President Trump told reporters that the deadline wouldn't be pushed back.
"We'll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons, or it'll be sold," Trump said just before boarding a flight to Michigan. "I'm not extending deadlines. No. It's September 15. There will be no extension of the TikTok deadline."
Reports indicate that both Microsoft and Oracle have made offers for ByteDance's US operations. The problem is that the companies may not be able to appease the conflicting demands of the US and Chinese governments.
In early August, Trump declared TikTok a national security threat due to the potential for the Chinese government to collect data on American users and to conduct disinformation campaigns in the United States. Trump claimed that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act gives the president the authority to shut down an app like TikTok if it threatens national security.
A follow-up order on August 14 retroactively blocked ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly, the platform that subsequently evolved into TikTok. The president has the power to block international mergers that raise national security concerns, and some experts see this as a stronger legal basis for shutting down the service.
ByteDance fielded offers from both Microsoft and Oracle and was reportedly close to choosing one of them when the Chinese government intervened. At the end of August, Beijing announced new export control rules that limited exports of artificial intelligence software witRead More – Source
[contf] [contfnew] 
arstechnica
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
