President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday that he plans to issue an executive order that would give TikTok’s China-based parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the popular video-sharing platform is subject to a permanent U.S. ban.
Trump announced the decision in a post on his Truth Social account as millions of TikTok users in the U.S. awoke to discover they could no longer access the TikTok app or platform. Google and Apple removed the app from their digital stores to comply with a federal law that required them to do so if TikTok parent company ByteDance didn’t sell its U.S. operation to an approved buyer by Sunday.
He said his order would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect” and “confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.
“Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations,” Trump wrote.
The law gives the sitting president authority to grant a 90-day extension if a viable sale is underway. Although investors made a few offers, ByteDance previously said it would not sell. In his post on Sunday, Trump said he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,” but it was not immediately clear if he was referring to the government of an American company.
“By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up,” Trump wrote. “Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”
The federal law required ByteDance to cut ties with the platform’s U.S. operations by Sunday due to national security concerns posed by the app’s Chinese roots. The law passed with wide bipartisan support in April, and U.S. President Joe Biden quickly signed it. TikTok and ByteDance sued on First Amendment grounds, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the statute on Friday.
Millions of TikTok users in the U.S. were no longer able to watch or post videos on the platform as of Saturday night. “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” a pop-up message informed users who opened the TikTok app and tried to scroll through videos. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” a pop-up message informed users who opened the TikTok app and tried to scroll through videos. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
The service interruption TikTok instituted hours early caught most users by surprise. Experts had said the law as written did not require TikTok to take down its platform, only for app stores to remove it. Current users were expected to continue to have access to videos until the app stopped working due to a lack of updates.
The company’s app also was removed from prominent app stores, including the ones operated by Apple and Google. Apple told customers with its devices that it also took down other apps developed by TikTok’s China-based parent company, including one that some social media influencers had promoted as an alternative.
The Biden administration stressed in recent days that it did not intend to implement or enforce the nationwide ban before Trump takes office on Monday. Trump, who once favored a TikTok ban, said in an NBC News interview on Saturday that he was thinking about granting ByteDance a 90-day extension to find an approved buyer for the app’s U.S. operations.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned,” read the pop-up message the app’s users now see under the headline, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”
The only option the message gives to U.S. users is to close the app or click another option leading them to the platform’s website. There, users are shown the same message and given the option to download their data, an action that TikTok previously said may take days to process.
