President Trump signed an executive order Monday giving TikTok an additional 75 days before a law banning the popular video-sharing platform takes effect.
TikTok briefly shut down the app in the U.S. over the weekend, leaving American users unable to access the platform for more than 12 hours starting late Saturday night.
The brief shutdown came as a law, which required the app’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest from the platform or face a ban, took effect Sunday. The Supreme Court upheld the law Friday, ruling it did not violate the First Amendment and teeing up a ban.
In the wake of the court’s decision, the Biden administration said it did not plan to enforce the law and would instead leave implementation to the incoming Trump administration.
However, TikTok said later Friday that it planned to “go dark,” arguing the Biden administration did not provide “necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers.” The White House dismissed the company’s statement as a “stunt.”
The app stopped working for American users shortly before midnight Saturday and was removed from popular app stores.
On Sunday, Trump said he was asking companies “not to let TikTok stay dark” and announced plans to issue the executive order. The law allows the president to issue a 90-day extension if ByteDance is making progress toward a qualified divestiture.
TikTok came back online just after noon Sunday, thanking Trump for his assurances that the app’s service providers wouldn’t face penalties.
“It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship,” TikTok said in a statement posted to X. “We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.”
While the app is back up and running, it still faces an uncertain future. ByteDance is still expected to divest from TikTok in some shape or form.
Trump said Sunday that he would like the U.S. to have a “50 percent ownership position in a joint venture” in TikTok going forward.
“Without U.S. approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars — maybe trillions,” he wrote. “Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose.”
