President Trump signs executive order delaying TikTok ban
President Trump has signed an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day extension to comply with a law that requires a sale or ban of the platform.
He says during that time, the US will not enforce the law passed by Congress last year and signed by former President Joe Biden.
The order was among a slew of directives Trump signed on Monday evening.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, he said: “I tell you what. “I tell you what. Every rich person I know has called me to ask about TikTok. When asked by a journalist why he has changed his mind since trying to ban TikTok for 2020, Trump replied: “Because it’s something I use.” He also floated the idea of a joint venture between “the United States”, and ByteDance, its Chinese owner. But he did not give any further details on how that might work.
On Saturday evening, the Chinese-owned app stopped working for American users, after a law banning it on national security grounds came into effect.
It resumed services to its 170 million users in the US after Trump said he would issue an executive order to give the app a reprieve when he took office.
The Biden administration had argued that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.
Opponents of a ban have cited freedom of speech as a reason for keeping the platform open.
TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, previously ignored a law requiring it to sell its US operations to avoid a ban. The Supreme Court upheld the law on Friday, and it went into effect Sunday. However, the Biden White House stated that they would leave the implementation of the law to the new administration due to its timing. In a Sunday post on X by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, Cotton stated that any company who “hosts or distributes or services communist-controlled TikTok”, could be subject to hundreds of billions of dollar fines. Think about it”.
TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew attended Trump’s inauguration on Monday along with other big technology bosses, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
Earlier on Monday, YouTube star Mr Beast posted a TikTok video of him apparently from a private jet on his way to make an official offer to buy the short video platform.
The post gave no other details about the offer, only that it would be “crazy”.
Other companies, billionaires and celebrities have expressed interest in buying TikTok, including X owner Musk and an investor from the TV show Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary.
Additional reporting by Michelle Fleury
