Trump Gives TikTok Owners Deadline to Sell to US Firm

The clock is going tick-tock when it comes to TikTok selling its US arm to Microsoft or another American company, President Trump said Monday. The president—who on Friday said he was considering banning the Chinese-owned app for security reasons—said TikTok would be shut down on Sept. 15 unless a deal was reached, Bloomberg reports. "I don’t mind whether it’s Microsoft or someone else, a big company, a secure company, a very American company buys it," he told reporters at the White House. Trump also said the federal government would be getting a "lot of money" from the deal, though he didn't explain exactly how that would work, the New York Times reports.

"Whatever the price is that goes to whoever owns it—because I guess it’s China, essentially, more than anything else—I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States," Trump said. The president earlier rejected suggestions that Chinese company ByteDance could sell TikTok to Microsoft, but he apparently changed his mind after talking to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft said in a Sunday blog post following that conversation that the company will "move quickly" on the deal, which would be finished no later than Sept. 15. Sources tell Reuters that Trump decided to OK the deal after pressure from his advisers and Republican lawmakers, who feared that banning the popular short-video app would alienate younger voters. (More TikTok stories.)