As Trump stays firm on TikTok ban deadline, ByteDance eyes Singapore

TikTok owner Byte-Dance plans to invest billions of dollars and recruit hundreds of employees in Singapore after opting to base its Southeast Asia regional headquarters there, said a person in the know.

ByteDance has also stepped up the purchase of servers in global trade and transport hub Singapore to back up US data as a contingency, the source said, adding that it began the three-year plan in 2019.

The Chinese firm is being forced by American President Donald Trump to sell TikTok’s US assets to avoid a ban there. Trump on Thursday night stressed that he won’t extend his September 15 deadline for ByteDance to sell the US operations of the popular video-sharing app.

“We’ll either close up TikTok in this country for security reasons, or it will be sold,” Trump told reporters before leaving for a campaign trip to Michigan. “There will be no extension of the TikTok deadline.”

The Trump administration has cited a potential national security risk due to the vast amount of private data which the app is compiling on US consumers.