WASHINGTON — Want a phone with TikTok already installed? It may cost you.
Listings have been popping up on eBay this week for iPhones and Android phones that still have the popular app installed, representing high demand for the delisted app.
The Supreme Court upheld a law last week that banned app stores from carrying the social media app because of its supposed connections to the Chinese government, unless its parent company sold any U.S. operations to an American operator.
Although neither Presidents Joe Biden or Donald Trump indicated they would enforce the law immediately, app stores like the one operated by Apple removed the app to comply with the law, meaning that it is no longer available to download, even if the user has downloaded it previously.
On Sunday, a day before Trump’s inauguration, the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, went dark in protest of the law, making it so that users in the U.S. couldn’t access any of the videos on the platform. But in a whiplash turnaround, the app was working again for users by Monday, with ByteDance explaining via in-app message that Trump’s incoming administration had promised to reverse the law.
Those who didn’t delete the app from their phones after it was delisted are now the only people in the U.S. who have access to it, and some have begun trying to sell their phones for significant sums of money.
Listings on auction website eBay range from one cent to more than $25,000. Several phones have sold for hundreds, with at least one listing for an iPhone 16 — the newest model — supposed being sold for $13,000.
However, it’s not clear that all of these sellers are actually making bank. The account with the $13,000 phone listing immediately appeared to relist the phone “or one like it” for $1,000 less.
Similar sales and re-listings among some of the highest-costing phones indicate that sellers could be attempting to artificially inflate the demand for the phones, and with it the price.
Some seem to just be having some fun. One account has listed an iPhone 15 Pro with TikTok and the editing software CapCut for nearly $5 million.
Many others appear to be selling in the $600 range, which is around the going rate for a used iPhone on eBay, regardless of whether it has TikTok installed or not.
A similar phenomenon took place when the mobile game “Flappy Bird” was delisted from the iPhone app store in 2014.
Although TikTok is up and running again for users who already have the app, it is unable to receive updates in the U.S., and without a change in the law may become obsolete as new phone software becomes available.
Although Trump has indicated he plans to make moves to save TikTok, it’s unclear exactly how he will do so. Any permanent plan would require Congress to rescind the law that banned the app in the first place — an unlikely scenario given that a deeply divided Congress was able to pass the law with bipartisan support in 2024.