TikTok petitioned a federal appeals court to halt the enforcement of an executive order put forth by President Donald Trump that would mandate the sale by Thursday, November 12, after not receiving any response form the administration.
According to CNBC, TikTok hasn’t heard from the Trump administration in weeks even as it tries to figure out whether or not to proceed to sell a minority stake in itself to Oracle and Walmart.
CFIUS set the deadline of November 12 for TikTok to divest itself of “any tangible or intangible assets or property, wherever located, used to enable or support ByteDance’s operation of the TikTok application in the United States.” TikTok claims it applied for a 30-day extension that was allowed for in the CFIUS’ order, but hasn’t received any communication on the matter. It’s not clear what would actually happen if the deadline passes; TikTok was granted a preliminary injunction against it late last month.
“For a year, TikTok has actively engaged with CFIUS in good faith to address its national security concerns, even as we disagree with its assessment,” TikTok said in a statement to The Verge. “In the nearly two months since the President gave his preliminary approval to our proposal to satisfy those concerns, we have offered detailed solutions to finalize that agreement – but have received no substantive feedback on our extensive data privacy and security framework.”
“Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” the statement continued.
“Today, with the November 12 CFIUS deadline imminent and without an extension in hand, we have no choice but to file a petition in court to defend our rights and those of our more than 1,500 employees in the US. We remain committed to working with the Administration — as we have all along — to resolve the issues it has raised, but our legal challenge today is a protection to ensure these discussions can take place.”
