Trump again extends TikTok ban deadline

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 90 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.

Trump disclosed the executive order Thursday.

“He’s making an extension so we can get this deal done,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. “It’s wildly popular. He also wants to protect Americans’ data and privacy concerns on this app. And he believes we can do both at the same time.”

It is the third time Trump has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — took effect. The second was in April when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.

It is not clear how many times Trump can — or will — keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance.

Texas Instruments to invest $60B in U.S.

Texas Instruments Inc. touted plans to spend more than $60 billion on semiconductor plants in the U.S., making it the latest chipmaker to promote its domestic manufacturing ambitions as the Trump administration urges investments and threatens to upend the sector with tariffs.

The company said its long-term capital spending plan remains unchanged. The total includes amounts allotted to plants that are already being built and equipped in the process of bringing them up to full production. The chipmaker will begin construction of two new factories at its site in Sherman, Texas, based on business demand.

Texas Instruments previously embarked on a program to bulk up its in-house production, countering the general trend in the industry toward outsourcing, even before the U.S. government offered subsidies to restore domestic chipmaking under President Joe Biden. The Dallas-based company’s leadership told investors that it made sense to establish new, more capable plants and to build them in the U.S. to increase its competitiveness, particularly against Chinese competitors.

Swiss bank cuts rate to zero

The Swiss National Bank cut its interest rate to zero and signaled it’s ready to go further if necessary as it seeks to deter investors from pushing up the franc.

The quarter-point reduction is the SNB’s sixth consecutive move and was forecast by most of the economists surveyed by Bloomberg after the currency’s strength caused consumer prices to drop for the first time in four years. A minority had anticipated an even bigger half-point step.

Speaking to reporters in Zurich on Thursday, President Martin Schlegel said the SNB is attempting to counter “lower inflationary pressure” and stressed that the central bank “will continue to monitor the situation closely and adjust our monetary policy if necessary.”

He acknowledged that the move brings borrowing costs “to the verge of negative territory,” adding that “we are also aware that negative interest rates do have undesirable side-effects and present challenges for many economic agents.”

Compiled from Associated Press and Bloomberg reports.