President-elect Donald Trump announced on Sunday his intention to enact an executive order that would allow TikTok’s China-based parent company additional time to secure an approved buyer before the widely-used video-sharing platform faces a permanent ban in the US.
Trump revealed the decision in a message on his Truth Social account while millions of TikTok users in the US woke up to find they could no longer use the TikTok app or platform.
Google and Apple took down the app from their online stores to adhere to a federal law mandating this action if TikTok’s parent company ByteDance failed to sell its US division to an authorized buyer by Sunday.
Trump 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.”
The law permits the current president to authorize a 90-day extension if a viable sale is in progress. Even though investors presented several bids, ByteDance had earlier indicated that it would not divest.
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In his post on Sunday, Trump said he “would like the United States to have a 50 per cent ownership position in a joint venture”, however, it was not immediately clear whether he meant the administration of an American firm.
The federal law mandated that ByteDance sever connections with the platform’s US operations by Sunday because of national security risks associated with the app’s Chinese origins.
The legislation was enacted with broad bipartisan backing in April, and US President Joe Biden swiftly approved it. On First Amendment grounds, TikTok and ByteDance filed a lawsuit, and the US Supreme Court confirmed the statute on Friday.
