By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – TikTok’s fortunes turned positive on Thursday as a growing number of U.S. officials said the Chinese owner should have more time to sell the app and stop it being banned before the President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. .

Trump’s incoming national security adviser said the new Republican administration will keep the social media app used by 170 million Americans alive in the US if a viable deal is reached and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer has urge President Joe Biden to extend the upcoming deadline by 90 days to close on Sunday.

A law passed in April ordered TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to divest TikTok’s US assets on Sunday to a non-Chinese buyer, or be banned over national security concerns. .

“We’re going to put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark,” US Representative Mike Waltz told Fox News, pointing to a provision in the law that allows for a 90-day extension if there is “significant progress” towards a divestiture.

“It’s important to buy President Trump time to get TikTok going,” said Waltz, whom Trump has tapped as his national security adviser.

The US Supreme Court is now deciding whether to uphold the law and allow TikTok to be banned on Sunday without a divestiture, reverse the law or put it on hold to give judges more time to make a decision.

The court said it could issue judgments on Friday, but as usual, did not say which case or cases would be tried.

Trump once supported banning the app but changed his stance last year. His move comes amid growing signs of support for his presidential campaign among tech executives and overtures from Republican donor Jeff Yass, who owns a large stake in ByteDance.

In a sign of the warming relationship between Trump and TikTok, the video app’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, will attend the presidential inauguration on January 20 and sit on the dais among other high-profile invitees, two a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

BIPARTISAN SHIFT

“It should take more time to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, adding that Democrats are trying to pass a bill extending the deadline to find a solution to 270 days.

“I will work with the Trump administration and both parties to keep TikTok alive while protecting our national security,” he added.

The comments by Schumer, who has been a strong supporter of legislation to force sales, are a sign of growing concern among prominent Democrats about the potential impact and political fallout of shutting down TikTok.

the New York Times (NYSE:) reported that Trump is considering an executive order that would seek to allow TikTok to continue operating despite a pending legal ban until new owners are found. It was not immediately clear whether Trump had the authority to do so because of legal divestiture requirements imposed by Congress.

TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for the Trump transition, Karoline Leavitt, said, “President Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to save TikTok, and there is no better deal maker than Donald Trump.”

‘TELL A BIG GAME’

However, many Republicans and Democrats remain concerned about Chinese ownership of the app, worried that the Chinese government could use it as a tool to collect data on US citizens and spread propaganda to the public.

“Trump talks a big game in China and wants to ban TikTok – as many Republicans voted to do,” Representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote on social media platform X. “But now he invited The CEO of TikTok to sit next to him at his inauguration even though TikTok is linked to the CCP and is a threat to our national security.

The prospect of a ban on TikTok has already prompted some users to look for alternatives, with Chinese social media app RedNote gaining nearly 3 million US users a day earlier. this week, according to analytics firm Similarweb (NYSE: ).

Reuters reported that TikTok plans to shut down the US operations of its social media app on Sunday barring a last-minute withdrawal, according to people familiar with the matter.

A White House official told Reuters on Wednesday that Biden has no plans to intervene to block the ban in his final days in office if the US Supreme Court fails to act. The official added that Biden cannot legally intervene without a credible plan from ByteDance to divest TikTok.

Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock (NYSE: ) and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees own 20% each. It has more than 7,000 employees in the United States.