Trump to delay TikTok ban as Walmart throws hat in the ring to buy the app
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(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump on Friday said he is extending the deadline for TikTok to be banned or sold off by its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance.
The previous April 5 deadline will be pushed 75 days, Trump said in a post to his social media platform. It’s the second time he has pushed the deadline since taking office.
“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days,” Trump wrote.
The move comes as Walmart is actively considering joining a group of investors to buy TikTok, according to sources close to the deal, who say Walmart’s interest was triggered by Amazon throwing their hat into the ring.
Back in 2020, Walmart said it was teaming up with Microsoft to make a bid for TikTok. The app would give the retail giant access to hundreds of millions of consumers who could become their customers and audiences for their advertisements, in a boost to their e-commerce business.
The Trump administration is considering a deal to save TikTok that would have China maintaining control of the algorithm that will be leased to a U.S. company, with a minority ownership stake, a source close to the deal told ABC News.
It’s unclear if that proposal follows the bipartisan law that Congress passed, which forces TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the wildly popular social media platform or face a ban in the U.S.
Sources say there are several investors interested in jumping in to purchase TikTok, including Amazon, Oracle and Applovin. A source close to the deal also says that Tim Stokely, the founder of the adult website OnlyFans, has also made a late-stage bid for TikTok.
The White House and Walmart have not immediately responded to requests for comment.
On Thursday, Trump hinted that his recently announced tariffs on China could be a negotiating tactic to achieve a deal on a TikTok sale.
“If somebody said that we’re going to give you something that’s so phenomenal, as long as they’re giving us something, that’s good,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariff?'” he said. “The tariffs give us great power to negotiate.”
Even if Trump approves a deal, China will still need to sign off on it. U.S.-China relations are tense, with the US about to hit China with a whopping 54% tariff. China is now retaliating with its own 34% tariffs on imports from the U.S.
“We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs,” Trump wrote in his social media post on Friday.
“We do not want TikTok to ‘go dark.’ We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — Canada vowed to respond with retaliatory tariffs if President Donald Trump slaps additional levies on Canadian goods as part of an expected announcement of sweeping new tariffs on Wednesday.
“We will respond to additional measures,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters on Tuesday. “We will put in place retaliatory measures if there are additional measures put against Canada tomorrow.”
The Trump administration last month imposed 25% tariffs on some goods from Canada. Initially, the tariffs applied to all Canadian goods, but a day later Trump issued a carve-out for goods compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, a free trade agreement.
In response to U.S. tariffs, Canada slapped a 25% retaliatory duty on $30 billion worth of goods and pledged additional measures.
Despite the trade turbulence on Tuesday, U.S. stocks rallied.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 30 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 climbed 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq increased 0.8%.
Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Monday that he had settled on a course of action for the fresh round of tariffs set to take effect on April 2, though he declined to offer details.
Additional U.S. tariffs could elicit countermeasures from trade partners, exacerbating global trade tensions that erupted in response to a previous set of tariffs issued by the Trump administration last month.
Europe has a “strong plan” to retaliate against Trump’s planned tariffs, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said in a speech on Tuesday.
“We will approach these negotiations from a position of strength. Europe holds a lot of cards, from trade to technology to the size of our market,” von der Leyen said.
Days earlier, Trump told reporters over the weekend that his tariffs could affect “all the countries.”
“The tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us, meaning they will be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — While Elon Musk has vaulted into a powerful role overhauling government agencies and upending Washington, the world’s richest person has suffered a $106 billion drop in wealth due to steep decline in shares of his Tesla electric car company.
Tesla’s stock price has plummeted 30% from its all-time high in December, including a 21% selloff since Inauguration Day. The losses have sent Musk’s net worth tumbling from a peak of $486 billion on Dec. 17 to its current level of about $380 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The stock woes have divided current and former Tesla shareholders. Critics of Musk fault his new role and polarizing reputation, blaming recent reports showing lackluster sales in some regions on his foray into politics. They say Musk must step away from the Trump administration for the company to thrive. Supporters, on the other hand, say Musk’s role in the White House has little to do with the selloff, noting that Tesla shares remain higher than where they stood on Election Day. Instead, some say, the company is suffering growing pains as it weathers stiff competition in electric vehicles and pursues new ventures like self-driving taxis.
“I don’t have a problem if Elon wants to save a bunch of money for America. I say, ‘Where’s the good part in this for Tesla'” Ross Gerber, a prominent Tesla investor, told ABC News, referring to cost-cutting efforts undertaken by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Tesla representatives did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Despite disagreement over the effect of Musk’s government role, both current and former Tesla shareholders who spoke to ABC News broadly acknowledged the company’s recent business hiccups.
Tesla sold fewer cars in 2024 than it did the year prior, marking the company’s first year-over-year sales decline in more than a decade, earnings released in January showed. As rivals have challenged Tesla’s dominance over the electric vehicle market, the company has promised a future revenue stream from autonomous taxis, also known as robotaxis.
Musk announced in late January that the company would roll out its robotaxi test program in Austin, Texas, in June. But within days, China-based competitor BYD unveiled advances in self-driving technology, which the company said was set to be included in models costing as little as $9,600. Gary Black, managing partner of The Future Fund, which manages $100 million in assets, including Tesla shares, said the recent selloff of Tesla is primarily the result of investor jitters about whether the company can dominate self-driving technology the way it did electric vehicles.
“Over time, you will see Teslas and other cars self-drive. But Tesla is not going to be the only one,” Black told ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze.
The stock also faced downward pressure this week when a Musk-led group of investors offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion, making possible a scenario in which Musk would sell some of his Tesla shares to finance the deal, Black said. Black said that, in his opinion, the downturn has nothing to do with Musk’s government role.
“It’s always good to know the president of the United States — to be able to pick up your phone and say, you know, ‘I need this favor, that favor,'” Black said.
A jump in Tesla shares after Trump’s victory suggests many investors viewed the relationship that way. The stock price soared about 85% over a six-week period following Election Day.
But some investors lay the blame for the downturn squarely at Musk’s feet.
Nell Minow, Vice Chair of ValueEdge Advisors and a longtime critic of Musk, said Musk has been “absent” from the company.
“I think that he is a huge drag on the stock right now,” Minow told Schulze. “No question, he’s a problem.”
“Elon Musk is to the Tesla brand what the Green Giant is to corn,” Minow said. “He has made himself the brand and that is always very risky.” Minow, who said she donated nearly all of her Tesla shares to charity last year, also criticized the Tesla board for what she said was a failure to hold Musk to account, or update shareholders and the public about a leadership plan while Musk runs DOGE.
“We don’t know what the board is thinking. They have not spoken out in any way,” Minow said. “They have not made a filing with the SEC about what the impact of this side hustle is, and the employees and the shareholders need some kind of certainty.”
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander echoed concerns about the board’s ability to rein in Musk. Lander, who oversees $1.25 billion in Tesla stock through the city’s five pension systems, said the lack of oversight was a “long-standing problem.”
“Independent governance is designed to provide a voice for shareholders at the table,” Lander, who is running for New York City mayor and has publicly sparred with Musk, said in a statement to ABC News. “When companies are controlled by a set of directors with either family or aligned interests, they lose this.”
For his part, Musk has looked to hype up Tesla’s prospects, saying on an earnings call last month that he believes there is an opportunity for it to be “the most valuable company in the world.”
During the call, AllianceBernstein Research analyst Daniel Roska questioned Musk on how Tesla plans to meet its ambitious projections given its high valuation.
Musk emphasized Tesla’s focus on real-world AI, claiming the company is making significant strides.
“We’re working on perfecting real-world AI and making rapid progress week over week, if not month over month,” Musk said. “I go where the problem is, essentially … I focus where the challenges are the greatest.”
Some Tesla shareholders remain bullish on the company despite its short-term drop. Angel investor Larry Goldberg, known as “Tesla Larry,” posted on X that he supports Musk’s political efforts, even if they impact the company’s stock price.
“If the Trump administration (and DOGE) does not fix the deficit, my Tesla shares — and everyone’s US stocks and bonds will be worthless,” Goldberg wrote.
(NEW YORK) — Stock markets struggled into Wednesday morning as it became clear that President Donald Trump intended to announce a slew of tariffs on America’s trading partners, with the White House preparing to mark what it is calling “Liberation Day.”
The S&P 500 and NASDAQ both posted their first quarterly losses since 2022 this week as investors prepared for the new measures and economists warned of the possibility of a recession — with major potential knock-on effects for other economies around the globe.
The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ futures were all slipping on Wednesday morning, with Dow Jones futures down by about 100 points.
Trump is set to make his tariff announcement in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday after the stock market closes.
Abroad, the British FTSE 100 index dropped by more than 0.6% on Wednesday morning, with Germany’s DAX index down by 1.2%. The French CAC 40 index was down more than 0.5%.
Japan’s Nikkei index rose nearly 0.3%, but South Korea’s KOSPI index dropped by more than 0.6%.
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones ended at 41,989.96 down 0.03%. The S&P 500 ended at 5,633.07 up 0.38% and the NASDAQ ended at 17,449.89 up 0.87%.
Automakers and pharmaceutical companies have reportedly been lobbying the Trump administration for carve outs and a phase-in approach for the promised tariffs.
World leaders have threatened a response while pressing the White House for clarity.
