Investing.com– President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday instructing the Attorney General to postpone a ban on TikTok by 75 days, granting the social media platform more time to find a U.S. buyer.
Trump signed the order on his first day in office, as promised, amid a flurry of executive orders from the President.
Trump instructed the Attorney General to take no action against TikTok over a Congress-approved ban for 75 days, starting from Monday. He also stated that the Department of Justice will not take any action to enforce the ban after the expiration of the period.
Trump’s order comes after the President vowed to overturn a ban on TikTok, which was set to go into effect from Sunday. While TikTok did begin shutting down services in some parts of the country, it began restoring services after Trump’s comments, thanking the President.
Trump said he was seeking a deal which would see at least 50% U.S. ownership in TikTok’s domestic operations. Recent reports said Elon Musk could be in the running to buy the social media firm.
The TikTok ban was approved by Congress on national security grounds, and called on the social media app- which is owned by China’s ByteDance- to either sell to a U.S. entity or withdraw from the country.
A TikTok ban bodes well for other social media apps, such as Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP), Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META), and YouTube, which were expected to benefit from an influx of users leaving TikTok.
