TikTok said on Sunday that it was restoring services in the US after Donald Trump pledged earlier in the day to give the video app a reprieve on its US ban.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that after taking office on Monday he would sign an executive order allowing the Chinese-owned video app additional time to find a buyer before facing a total shutdown, and proposing that the US or an American firm take a 50% ownership stake.
“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.”
TikTok stopped working in the US for 170 million users late on Saturday.
Congress passed a law in April ordering TikTok, which is currently owned by ByteDance, to either sell to a non-Chinese owner or face being removed from the US, with the app choosing to shut itself down after the US supreme court ruled to uphold the ban on Friday. Under the law, companies would be blocked from distributing, maintaining or updating the app – for instance, in effect banning it from app stores – if TikTok failed to secure a sale.
From Saturday night until Sunday afternoon, a pop-up message to the app’s US users read: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.” Trump had pushed for a ban under his previous presidency but, after finding a large audience on the app during his 2024 presidential campaign, he attempted to intervene on TikTok’s behalf at the 11th hour.
The company’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.
After Trump’s message on Sunday, the company said in a statement that it was “in the process of restoring service”, adding: “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive. It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.”
Some Tiktok users reported the app was fully functional once again shortly after the announcement.
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.
Concerns around TikTok centre on the possibility of the Chinese state accessing the personal data generated by the app’s US users or manipulating the app’s powerful algorithm to dictate what users see. Chew has denied Chinese state involvement in the app, saying in 2023 ByteDance is not “an agent of China or any other country”.
Last week it was reported that Trump was weighing delaying the ban via an executive order. The legislation threatening TikTok with a ban contains a provision allowing the president to extend the sale deadline, which passed on Sunday, for a sale by 90 days if there is the possibility of deal, although the law cites the need for “evidence of significant progress” towards a transaction.
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. It has also been reported that Chinese officials have considered brokering a TikTok sale to Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and a Trump ally. TikTok dismissed the Musk reports as “pure fiction”.
