WASHINGTON D.C., DC — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday to keep TikTok operating for 75 days, a relief to the social media platform’s users even as national security questions persist.
TikTok’s China-based parent ByteDance was supposed to find a U.S. buyer or be banned on Jan. 19. Trump’s order could give ByteDance more time to find a buyer.
“I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok,” Trump said.
Trump has amassed nearly 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. Yet its 170 million U.S. users could not access TikTok for more than 12 hours between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
The platform went offline before the ban approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court took effect on Sunday. After Trump promised to pause the ban on Monday, TikTok restored access for existing users. Google and Apple, however, still have not reinstated TikTok to their app stores.
Business leaders, lawmakers, legal scholars, and influencers who make money on TikTok are watching to see how Trump tries to resolve a thicket of regulatory, legal, financial and geopolitical issues with his signature.
How did the TikTok ban come about?
TikTok’s app allows users to create and watch short-form videos, and broke new ground by operating with an algorithm that fed viewers recommendations based on their viewing habits. But concerns about its potential to serve as a tool for Beijing to manipulate and spy on Americans pre-date Trump’s first presidency.
In 2020, Trump issued executive orders banning dealings with ByteDance and the owners of the Chinese messaging app WeChat. Courts ended up blocking the orders, but less than a year ago Congress overwhelmingly passed a law citing national security concerns to ban TikTok unless ByteDance sold it to an approved buyer.
The law, which went into force Sunday, allows for fines of up to $5,000 per U.S. TikTok user against major mobile app stores — like the ones operated by Apple and Google — and internet hosting services like Oracle if they continued to distribute TikTok to U.S. users beyond the deadline for ByteDance’s divestment.
Trump on Sunday said he had asked TikTok’s U.S. service providers to continue supporting the platform and app while he prepared to sign an executive order to stop the ban for now.
“The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” Trump posted on Truth Social, his social networking site.
The law that Congress passed and now-former President Joe Biden signed in April allowed for a 90-day extension if there had been progress toward a sale before the statute’s effective date. Less certain is whether that provision can be applied retroactively, according to Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute.
“Executive orders cannot override existing laws,” Kreps said. “It’s not clear that the new president has that authority to issue the 90-day extension of a law that’s already gone into effect.”
What difference might the sale of TikTok make?
Kreps also doubts the conditions for a delay exist at this point without so much as even a potential buyer being named to prove that a sale was moving along.
But Alan Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor, has written that the law also empowers the president to decide what constitutes a “qualified divestiture” — suggesting Trump could have discretion to say whether or when ByteDance meets the terms of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
Although ByteDance spent months repeating it wasn’t interested in selling, Beijing on Monday also signaled a possible easing on China’s stance on TikTok to allow it to be divested from its Chinese parent company. China’s vice president held meetings with Vice President JD Vance and Tesla tech titan Elon Musk on Sunday.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, said Monday that business operations and acquisitions “should be independently decided by companies in accordance with market principles.”
“If it involves Chinese companies, China’s laws and regulations should be observed,” Mao said.
Until now, it was widely believed that Beijing would not allow the sale of TikTok, which had come to embody China’s defiance in the face of “U.S. robbery.” However, TikTok was among several issues brought up in a phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump on Friday, though details were not available.
Trump later announced plans to delay the TikTok ban and suggested a joint venture in which the U.S. would get a 50% ownership of the app. Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, attended Trump’s inauguration, seated with American tech heavyweights.
Who or what can enforce the ban?
The Justice Department is generally tasked with enforcing the laws of the federal government, so it’s possible that Trump will direct the DOJ to ignore the law. Such a move might itself be subject to legal scrutiny but would buy time for TikTok.
Trump’s efforts to save TikTok may put him at odds with some of the House members and senators who voted for the law, which received broad bipartisan support. House Speaker Mike Johnson called ByteDance’s ownership “a very dangerous thing,” and said he expected a full sale to happen.
“I think we will enforce the law,” Johnson told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
Legislators now stand to “look a little bit silly” if the ban doesn’t last, Kreps said.
“(The case) becomes about the separations of powers, and checks and balances, that we don’t have a king who decides what happens with the law,” Kreps said. “Enforcement isn’t only up to the executive branch.”
What are other potential legal obstacles?
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, in a message posted on X, listed a number of state and federal agencies, and private entities, that might be willing to go to court to get the ban enforced.
“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” Cotton noted.
Despite the intense scrutiny and potential costs involved, the machinations over TikTok are in some ways just business as usual for the tech companies involved, according to Gus Hurwitz, a legal scholar with the International Center for Law and Economics.
“The fines that we’re talking about are civil penalties and companies risk civil penalties all the time,” Hurwitz said.
Still, the hard business calculus of complying with a law in limbo or risk defying a president who holds lucrative federal contracts over those companies could come into focus if shareholders sue.
Oracle, for example, has a part of the Pentagon’s $9 billion contract to build its cloud computing network.
“This actually could be the right business decision to make,” Hurwitz said. “That’s not necessarily a breach of duty to shareholders.”
Which companies are deciding whether to trust Trump’s assurances?
There’s been lots of questions about how companies such as Oracle and Akamai Technologies are powering TikTok’s servers to stay online, while others such as Apple and Google have made the app unavailable for new users to download.
None of the companies have responded to requests for comment.
Oracle in 2020 announced it had a 12.5% stake in TikTok Global after securing its business as the app’s cloud technology provider.
Meanwhile, as of Monday night, a search for TikTok on Apple’s app store directs to an online statement that reads in part: “Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” while Google’s app store notes downloads for TikTok “are paused due to current US legal requirements.”
___
Ho reported from Seattle. Maya Sweedler and Didi Tang in Washington contributed reporting.