ByteDance may have slightly longer to sell TikTok but Trump has also strengthened his hand, analysts say

After a fresh US legal move against ByteDance on Friday, analysts say that TikTok’s Beijing-based owner now has slightly longer to pull off a sale of its US operations, but at the same time the Trump administration has strengthened its hand against the Chinese technology company.

President Donald Trump ordered ByteDance on Friday to divest the US operations of its video-sharing app TikTok within 90 days, ramping up pressure on the Chinese company over concerns about the safety of the personal data it handles.

Trump’s latest move against the global short video sensation comes on top of an executive order he issued last week that would prohibit certain transactions with TikTok unless ByteDance divests it within 45 days. The action forms part of a broad drive by the Trump administration to “clean” the US internet of Chinese influence amid a tech and trade stand-off between the world’s two-biggest economies.

ByteDance is already in talks to sell the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand operations of TikTok to Microsoft, among other suitors, although Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was quoted in a Wired magazine interview describing the potential acquisition as a “poisoned chalice”.