TikTok at risk of going dark

Photo Credit: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick by Daniel Torok (Public Domain)

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says TikTok will go dark in the U.S. “very soon” unless China agrees to grant the U.S. more control over the app.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that TikTok will be forced to stop operating in the United States if China does not approve a deal for the sale of the short-form video app. In order for the deal to go through, not only must China approve, but it must relinquish control of its algorithm to a U.S. based entity.

“China can have a little piece, or ByteDance, the current owner, can keep a little piece. But basically, Americans will have control. Americans will own the technology, and Americans will control the algorithm,” said Lutnick, speaking on CNBC. “If that deal gets approved by the Chinese, then that deal will happen. If they don’t approve it, then TikTok is going to go dark, and those decisions are coming very soon.”

Last month, President Trump extended the deadline by 90 days for China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets or face a nationwide ban. That dragged the deadline out to September 17 for a 2024 law that initially mandated the divest-or-shutdown ultimatum take place by January 19 of this year. Trump has granted extensions of that deadline three times.

Some lawmakers have argued that Trump has no legal authority to extend the deadline. Further, they assert that the deal under consideration would not meet legal requirements even if China did grant its approval.

Reportedly, a deal has been in the works since early this spring, which would have spun TikTok’s U.S. operations into a new U.S.-based company. But this plan stalled out after China indicated an unwillingness to cooperate following Trump’s announcement of steep tariffs on Chinese goods.

Either way, it’s unclear where discussions on the deal currently stand. Trump told Fox News last month that he had a group of “very wealthy people” lined up to buy the platform. But just last week, private equity firm Blackstone pulled out of the planned consortium bid to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations, making the likelihood of a deal being cemented somewhat questionable.