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After TikTok’s brief outage in January, the app came back online but was no longer available to download.
TikTok was restored to Apple’s App Store and Google Play on Thursday following stronger signals from President Donald Trump that it will be allowed to continue operating in the U.S.
Asked by reporters Thursday for any updates on negotiations to keep TikTok alive in the U.S., Trump said the deadline for a sale that he imposed could be pushed further.
“I have 90 days from about two weeks ago and I’m sure it can be extended but let’s see, I don’t think you’ll need to,” he said.
A law passed with bipartisan support and signed by President Joe Biden last year required TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to find an approved buyer for its U.S. platform by Jan. 19 or face a ban. The Supreme Court upheld the law a few days before Trump was inaugurated.
TikTok briefly shut down in the U.S. in January, but went back online after Trump said he would postpone the ban. The app has since continued operating in the U.S. but new downloads from app stores were not allowed. Phones with the app installed were listed on resale sites for thousands of dollars.
Trump had unsuccessfully attempted a U.S. ban of the platform during his first term. He has since reversed his position and has credited the platform with helping him win more young voters during last year’s presidential election.
An executive order Trump signed shortly after being sworn in as president enabled the short-form video app to continue operating until early April.
Congress voted to ban TikTok in the U.S. out of concern that TikTok’s parent company’s link to the Chinese government represented a security risk. The Biden administration argued in court for months that it was too much of a risk to allow a Chinese company to control the algorithm that fuels what people see on the app. Officials also raised concerns about user data collected on the platform.
However, to date, the U.S. hasn’t provided public evidence of TikTok handing user data to Chinese authorities or allowing them to tinker with its algorithm.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
