Despite ongoing national security concerns, TikTok users are relieved that President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Monday to keep the social media platform open for another 75 days.
On January 19, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, based in China, was expected to find a buyer in the United States or face ban. ByteDance may have additional time to find a buyer as a result of Trump’s decree.
Trump remarked, “I suppose I have a soft spot for TikTok.”
Since joining TikTok last year, Trump has accumulated around 15 million followers, and he attributes his rise in popularity among young voters to the trend-setting site. However, between Saturday night and Sunday morning, TikTok’s 170 million users in the United States were unable to access the app for over 12 hours.
Before the congressionally approved and U.S. Supreme Court-upheld ban went into force on Sunday, the platform went offline. TikTok restored access for current users on Monday after Trump pledged to halt the ban. However, TikTok is still not available in Google’s and Apple’s app stores.
Legislators, business executives, legal experts, and TikTok influencers who profit from the platform are all keeping an eye on Trump’s attempts to use his signature to clear a maze of legal, financial, regulatory, and geopolitical problems.
How did the TikTok ban come about?
The TikTok app, which lets users make and watch short movies, pioneered the use of an algorithm that suggests videos to users based on their viewing preferences. However, worries about its ability to be used by Beijing to snoop on and manipulate Americans existed before Trump’s first term in office.
Trump signed executive orders in 2020 that prohibited transactions with ByteDance and the operators of the WeChat messaging service in China. The directives were eventually blocked by courts, but less than a year ago, Congress passed a law prohibiting TikTok unless ByteDance sold it to an authorized bidder, claiming national security concerns.
The law, which went into effect on Sunday, stipulates that major mobile app stores, such as those run by Apple and Google, and internet hosting companies, such as Oracle, could face fines of up to $5,000 per TikTok user in the United States if they continued to distribute the app to users in the country after ByteDance’s divestment deadline.
As he was getting ready to sign an executive order to temporarily halt the ban, Trump stated on Sunday that he had ordered TikTok’s U.S. service providers to keep supporting the app and platform.
On Saturday, January 18, 2025, in Los Angeles, a cell phone screen displays a notification from the TikTok app that reads, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.” (Photo by Andy Bao/AP)AP
On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump wrote, “The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”
A 90-day extension was permitted by the law that Congress passed and that former President Joe Biden signed in April, provided that there had been progress on a sale prior to the statute’s effective date. Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute, said it is less clear if that clause can be used retroactively.
According to Kreps, executive actions cannot supersede current legislation. It’s unclear if the newly elected president has the power to extend a statute that has already taken effect by ninety days.
What difference might the sale of TikTok make?
Without even naming a possible bidder to demonstrate that a transaction was progressing, Kreps questions if the circumstances for a delay are present at this stage.
However, according to Alan Rozenshtein, a professor of law at the University of Minnesota, the law also gives the president the authority to determine what qualifies as a qualified divestiture. This means that Trump may have the authority to determine whether or not ByteDance complies with the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
Beijing on Monday also hinted at a potential relaxation of China’s position on TikTok, allowing it to be separated from its Chinese parent firm, despite ByteDance’s repeated statements over the past few months that it was not interested in selling.On Sunday, China’s vice president met with Tesla tech tycoon Elon Muskon and Vice President JD Vance.
Mao Ning, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stated on Monday that enterprises should make their own decisions about commercial operations and acquisitions based on market principles.
China’s laws and regulations should be followed if Chinese enterprises are involved, Mao stated.
Up until now, it was generally assumed that Beijing would forbid the sale of TikTok, which had come to represent China’s resistance to American hegemony. Though specifics were unavailable, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump spoke over the phone on Friday, bringing up a number of topics, including TikTok.
Later, Trump proposed a collaborative venture in which the United States would acquire a 50% stake in the app and announced plans to postpone the TikTok ban. The CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, was seated with prominent American tech figures at Trump’s inauguration.
Who or what can enforce the ban?
Trump might order the DOJ to disregard the law because the Justice Department is often entrusted with upholding federal laws. Although such a strategy could potentially face legal scrutiny, it would afford TikTok some time.
Trump may be at war with some of the senators and members of the House who supported the law, which was widely supported by both parties, because of his attempts to salvage TikTok. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he expected a full sale to occur and described ByteDance’s ownership as extremely risky.
On Sunday, Johnson told NBC News Meet the Press, “I believe we will enforce the law.”
According to Kreps, lawmakers now risk appearing somewhat foolish if the restriction is lifted.
We don’t have a king who makes all the decisions regarding the law, therefore the matter becomes about checks and balances and the separation of powers, Kreps added. The executive branch is not solely responsible for enforcement.
What are other potential legal obstacles?
In a post on X, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas mentioned several federal, state, and private organizations that would be open to suing to enforce the ban.
According to Cotton, any business that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise helps communist-controlled TikTok could be subject to hundreds of billions of dollars in crippling legal penalties from the DOJ as well as from state AGs, shareholder lawsuits, and securities law.
“The machinations over TikTok are in some ways just business as usual for the tech companies involved,” said Gus Hurwitz, a legal scholar with the International Center for Law and Economics, despite the intense scrutiny and potential consequences involved.
Hurwitz stated that businesses constantly run the possibility of facing civil penalties, which are the fines we are discussing.
However, if shareholders file a lawsuit, the hard financial decision of whether to follow a law in uncertainty or risk disobeying a president who has lucrative federal contracts over those companies may become clear.
For instance, Oracle has a $9 billion contract with the Pentagon to develop its cloud computing infrastructure.
Hurwitz stated that this might be the best course of action for the company. It’s not always a violation of the obligation to shareholders.
Which companies are deciding whether to trust Trump s assurances?
Many people have been wondering how businesses like Oracle and Akamai Technologies are keeping TikTok’s servers up and running, while other companies like Apple and Google have blocked new users from downloading the app.
Requests for comment have not received a response from any of the businesses.
Oracle secured its position as the app’s cloud technology supplier in 2020 and stated that it owned a 12.5% share in TikTok Global.
As of Monday night, however, searching for TikTok on the Apple app store leads to an online statement that states, among other things: Google’s app store notes that TikTok downloads are suspended because of current US legal requirements, while Apple is required to abide by the laws in the jurisdictions in which it operates.
