TikTok has begun restoring service to the app in the United States after Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order lifting its ban.
A law signed by President Joe Biden last April required ByteDance, tik tok‘s China-based parent company to sell app to non-Chinese owner before Sunday or face a ban.
Some users reported losing access on Saturday night, and Americans who opened the app on Sunday were greeted with a message saying “they can’t use “TikTok” for now”.
But in a publication in Fact Social before his inauguration, Mr Trump He said he would issue an executive order giving the app an extension to find a new owner.
“I am asking companies not to allow TikTok to remain in the dark,” the president-elect wrote, adding that the order will allow time “for us to reach an agreement to protect our national security.”
He then confirmed that “there will be no liability for any company that helped prevent TikTok from going dark before my order” and said: “Americans deserve to see our exciting inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations.”
TikTok later said it had begun restoring service on Sunday, thanking the president for clarifying to service providers “that they will not face penalties for providing TikTok.”
He added: “It is a strong stance in favor of 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.”
Before the ban went into effect, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called TikTok’s plans to shut down the app a “stunt” and said actions to enforce the ban “would fall to the next administration.”
Trump also indicated on Fact Social what a possible deal could look like, saying he would prefer the United States “have a 50% stake in a joint venture” with ByteDance or a new owner.
“Without US approval, there is no TikTok,” he said. “With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe trillions.”
On Saturday, the president-elect said NBC NewsMeet The Press Moderator Kristen Welker Who Would “Most Likely” Give TikTok a 90-day break from the ban to find a new owner.
Under the bipartisan TikTok law, signed by Biden, the president can grant a one-time 90-day extension under three conditions:
• There is a path to divestment of the application
• There is “significant progress” toward executing a sale.
• There are “relevant binding legal agreements to permit the execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension”
There are no legal agreements on the sale of tik tok to a non-Chinese owner have been made public, and Trump did not say Saturday whether he was aware of any recent progress toward a sale.
CNBC later reported that Perplexity AI made a bid for the app’s parent company on Saturday to allow it to merge with TikTok US and create a new entity, which would also include New Capital Companions.
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During his first term in the White House, Trump tried to ban TikTok as well as the Chinese-owned WeChat messaging app, but it was blocked by the courts. it was later revoked by Mr Biden.
Last year, he briefly met with the app’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, who will attend the inauguration on Mondays.
He is expected to sit down with fellow technology executives Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, a Trump transition official told NBC.
