Is TikTok getting banned tomorrow? What we know as of Friday

The fate of TikTok in the U.S. once again hangs in the balance in a déjà vu moment for fans of the social media platform. After briefly going dark following a ban in January, President Donald Trump extended the deadline for Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its U.S. assets to this Saturday, April 5. As of Friday morning, a deal still has not been announced.

Users of the app likely don’t have much to worry about, however. Trump recently said that a sale will be complete by Saturday, but if it’s not, he’ll extend the deadline again.

“If it’s not finished, it’s not a big deal. We’ll just extend it,” he told reporters last Wednesday, March 26. He also said he’d consider lowering tariffs on China to encourage Beijing, where ByteDance is based, to support a sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets.

More: Who could buy TikTok? Amazon, Blackstone, OnlyFans founder among the bidders

He reiterated faith in a deal closing soon on Sunday, saying, “We have a lot of potential buyers,” according to Reuters. “There’s tremendous interest in TikTok…. I’d like to see TikTok remain alive.”

Then, on Wednesday of this week, Trump met with top members of his administration to consider potential investors who could purchase a stake in TikTok. Vice President J.D. Vance said on Thursday that a deal would be announced before the April 5 deadline, reported Reuters.

“It’ll come out before the deadline,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News. “I think that we’re in a good place. We’re going to keep on working at it.”

Recap: Why is TikTok facing a ban again?

In late January, TikTok went dark for over 12 hours in the U.S. after the app was effectively banned under federal legislation.

President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in 2024. It gave parent company ByteDance until Jan. 19, 2025 to divest TikTok or face the ban. Some political officials have seen TikTok as a national security threat for years, expressing concern that ByteDance may be sharing U.S. user data with the Chinese government. ByteDance has repeatedly denied these claims, which thus far remain unsubstantiated.

Around that January deadline, U.S. internet hosting services made TikTok unavailable to access and app stores removed the app for download.

Though previously in favor of banning TikTok, especially during his first administration, Trump said he could “save” the app after winning the 2024 presidential election.

During the temporary January shutdown, Trump promised internet hosting services and app stores that they could restore TikTok and not face legal penalties. Most waited until the following month to restore access, fearing repercussions. Under federal legislation, companies could be fined $5,000 per user they help access TikTok. For companies like Google and Apple, this could mean a $5,000 fine for each user who downloads or updates TikTok.

Can Trump extend the TikTok deadline again?

Under the federal legislation that put the ban in place, the president can implement a 90-day extension on the deadline to sell. However, Trump didn’t take this route in January; instead, he signed an executive order delaying the ban by 75 days.

If Trump wishes to sign another executive order before the April 5 deadline, he can.

Senators urge Trump to work with Congress to save TikTok

On March 24, three Democratic senators sent a letter to Trump, asking the president to work with Congress on “any potential resolutions to the TikTok ban.”

“To the extent that you continue trying to delay the divestment deadline through executive orders, any further extensions of the TikTok deadline will require Oracle, Apple, Google and other companies to continue risking ruinous legal liability,” it states.

The letter, signed by Massachusetts Sen. Edward J. Markey, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and New Jersey Sen. Cory A. Booker, asks Trump to urge Republican senators to approve the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act. Introduced in January just days before the initial ban, the act, if passed, would extend the TikTok sale deadline to Oct. 16, 2025.

Who has expressed interest in purchasing TikTok?

Earlier in March, Trump told journalists that his administration was working with “four different groups” interested in purchasing TikTok but didn’t elaborate further. Since then, more last-minute bids have come in. Here’s who has expressed public interest in the app recently:

• Amazon submitted a bid for the app on Wednesday, according to Reuters and the New York Times.

• Cryptocurrency foundation Hbar and Zoop, a startup co-led by the founder of OnlyFans, jointly submitted to the White House a plan to buy the app, company representatives confirmed to USA TODAY on Wednesday.

• Private equity firm Blackstone is considering a stake in TikTok, Reuters and the New York Times reported. Blackstone would join an existing group of non-Chinese shareholders led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic.

• Andreessen Horowitz, a California-based venture capital firm, also expressed interest in buying. The firm’s investment would include Oracle, a massive U.S. tech company founded in part by Larry Ellison, one of the wealthiest people in the world.

• Project Liberty – Project Liberty, an organization led by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt with the intention of “constructing a new internet infrastructure,” submitted a bid to ByteDance earlier this year. In addition to McCourt, “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian have committed to the bid.

• MrBeast – A consortium of investors led by Employer.com founder and CEO Jesse Tinsley also submitted a bid to ByteDance earlier this year. James “Jimmy” Donaldson, the internet superstar more commonly known as MrBeast, is a part of the consortium, according to a news release from the law firm Paul Hastings.

• Perplexity AI – U.S.-based search engine Perplexity AI proposed a merger in January, according to Reuters. Rather than a sale, the merger would result in a new entity − a culmination of Perplexity AI and TikTok.

• Bobby Kotick, Doug McMillon, Microsoft and Rumble – Others who have expressed interest in purchasing the platform but have not made bids include Bobby Kotick, former CEO of video game company Activision; Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO; Microsoft, which proposed purchasing the platform with Walmart in 2020; and conservative video streaming platform Rumble.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will TikTok get banned again on Saturday? What we know