US President, Donald Trump, has approved Oracle’s bid for the American operations of TikTok, possibly offering the viral video-sharing app a way to escape a ban in America. In a chat with reporters on Sunday, Trump said: “I approved the deal in concept. If they get it done, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s OK too”, he said. The new company will reportedly be called TikTok Global, and would donate $5 billion to an education fund to align with the US President’s demand that the treasury should make some money off of the deal.
Following Trump’s decision, the US Commerce Department announced that it is delaying the proposed ban on TikTok by a week to let all parties sort out the nitty gritty of the deal. “In light of recent positive developments, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, at the direction of President Trump, will delay the prohibition of identified transactions pursuant to Executive Order 13942, related to the TikTok mobile application that would have been effective on Sunday, September 20, 2020, until September 27, 2020”, the DoC said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a US federal judge in California has halted the Trump administration’s ban on WeChat, which was also slated to go into effect Sunday alongside TikTok. In her ruling, judge Laurel Beeler said that WeChat users who filed for an injunction against the proposed ban “have shown serious questions going to the merits of the First Amendment claim, the balance of hardships tips in the plaintiffs favor”. The move now ensures that the app will continue to remain available for download on the App Store and and the Play Store in the US for the foreseeable future.
