Trump grants TikTok 75-day reprieve on U.S. ban
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day reprieve from the law that banned the app in the U.S. over the weekend.
In an executive order issued Monday, the president directed the U.S. attorney general to delay the enforcement of the TikTok ban for 75 days. The extension gives the new administration time to determine a course of action “that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans.”
The executive order allows a temporary extension while protecting service providers allowing the use of the app in the United States.
The law banning the Chinese-owned app requires the Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell by Jan. 19 or be banned in the United States. It cites national security issues and concerns over foreign control of American user data.
Trump has proposed a plan in which the U.S. would hold a 50% stake in a joint venture involving “whichever purchase we so choose.” However, the specifics remain uncertain.
Trump posted to Truth Social that with U.S. approval, “it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”
During the signing at the Oval Office, Trump said, “They make uh, all sorts of things in China. Nobody ever complains about that,” before reiterating his “warm spot” for the platform that he didn’t have before.
Trump originally signed an executive order to sell or ban TikTok on Aug. 6, 2020.
The law was signed by former President Joe Biden in April 2024 and was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last week. As a result, the platform went dark for hours over the weekend until coming back online on Sunday.
TikTok thanked Trump for his help shortly after he announced his intent to stall the ban until his administration could examine it more closely.
The returning president noted that the Department of Justice “did not take any action” or impose penalties against any entity between the enactment of the ban and the signing of the order.
Mike Wacker, a former tech fellow in Congress, says that Oracle, an American multinational computer technology company, is violating the law by continuing to provide hosting services to TikTok.
Wacker argues, “The executive order for TikTok didn’t grant a lawful 90-day extension. It just refused to enforce the law,” and warns that many in Washington D.C. disapprove of “flagrant lawbreaking.”
