Trump pledges to delay TikTok ban with executive order | Donald Trump

Donald Trump pledged on Sunday to give TikTok a reprieve on its US ban, saying he would sign an executive order allowing the company an additional 90 days to find a buyer before facing a total shutdown, and proposing that the US or an American firm take a 50% ownership stake.

TikTok stopped working in the US for 170 million users late on Saturday, as the Chinese-owned short video app shut down in response to a federal ban. In a social media post on Sunday the president-elect promised he would sign an executive order after taking office on Monday.

“By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say (sic) up,” Trump said. “Without US approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”

Congress passed a law in April mandating TikTok either sell to a non-Chinese owner or face a total shutdown, with the app choosing the shutdown after the US supreme court ruled to uphold the ban on Friday.

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US,” stated a pop up message to US users on TikTok on Saturday night, which came as something of a surprise, given that the law only required app stores to remove it. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.” Later on Sunday TikTok’s website came back online for some US users, though the app itself remained dark.

Trump attempted to intervene on TikTok’s behalf at the 11th hour, even though it was Trump who initially pushed for the ban. But he changed his tune after finding a large audience on the app during his 2024 presidential campaign.

TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, released a video thanking Trump for his efforts to keep the app active in the US. He is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration ceremony in person.

The incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, also told CNN on Sunday that Trump hasn’t ruled out continued Chinese ownership, with “firewalls to make sure that the data is protected here on US soil”.

He also said on CBS News on Sunday that Trump said he is working to “save” TikTok and needs time to sort out issues related to the firm and to evaluate potential buyers.

It is unclear whether Trump could totally circumvent the ban, though he could order the justice department not to enforce the bill. He has also said the supreme court decision should be “respected”.

Meanwhile, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he intends to uphold the TikTok ban.

“When President Trump issued the Truth post and said save TikTok, the way we read that is that he’s going to try to force along a true divestiture, changing of hands, the ownership,” Johnson said.

He added members of Congress are not worried about the app itself but about the Chinese Communist Party, and said TikTok’s owners, ByteDance, had 270 days to sell the app in the US.

Some Republicans have rejected the idea of extending the time before the ban goes into effect.

“Now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date,” said the Senate intelligence committee chairman Tom Cotton (Republican of Arkansas) and Senator Pete Ricketts (Republican of Nebraska) in a joint statement on Sunday.

“For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China. Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.”

Several Democrats last week urged President Biden to issue a reprieve to give TikTok more time before shutting down.

“It’s clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer for TikTok,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on 16 January. “We will continue working to keep TikTok alive, protect content creators’ livelihoods, protect against CCP surveillance, and protect national security. I will work with the Trump Admin to find a solution.”

The Shark Tank celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary said on Friday he offered TikTok’s owners $20bn to buy it, while the company Perplexity AI has also reportedly submitted a bid to merge with TikTok US, rather than purchase the app outright.