President-elect Donald Trump says he will issue an executive order attempting to save Tiktok and wants the app to operate under 50 percent U.S. ownership.
Apparently reacting to Trump’s promises, TikTok issued a statement saying, “In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service.”
“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”
Trump added that he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture” and that his executive order would protect from liability any companies that helped keep TikTok accessible before the order is issued.
“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,” TikTok said. “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.”
Trump is now scrambling to resurrect the app, showing that he wants to be viewed as a hero for saving it, even though he is largely responsible for jumpstarting momentum to ban the platform—and Democrats will have played a large part in allowing that perception.
President Joe Biden signed the TikTok ban into law last spring after it passed Congress with bipartisan support due to national security concerns regarding China‘s influence over the app’s content and access to the data belonging to 170 million Americans on the app. The legislation gave ByteDance, the platform’s Chinese owner, until Jan. 19 to sell TikTok or else it would be banned. TikTok as well as creators on the app attempted to challenge the ban in court, but the Supreme Court upheld it on Friday after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it last month
Under the ban, companies like Google and Apple are prohibited from hosting TikTok in their app stores, but TikTok itself went a step further by cutting off U.S. users this weekend.
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” a message on the TikTok landing page read after approximately 10:30 p.m. Saturday, when U.S. users lost access to the app shortly before the law banning it went into effect.
Trump claimed that his proposed deal for 50 percent U.S. ownership would be “a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose” and speculated that “with our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”
