Proposes joint US-Chinese ownership of app; Trump’s announcement comes after the US Supreme Court, on Friday, upheld a US law, banning it from January 19

President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will issue an executive order right after taking office on Monday to keep TikTok alive in the US and batted for joint American-Chinese ownership of the app, a dilution of the legal requirement to completely shift the app from Chinese to American ownership.

His announcement comes after the US Supreme Court, on Friday, upheld a US law, passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, that prohibited American companies from distributing or maintaining or updating TikTok till it was under Chinese ownership from January 19. While Joe Biden had signed the law and supported the law, he left the enforcement of the decision to Trump.

Trump said on Truth Social that he will ask companies not to let TikTok stay dark. “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. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”

His announcement comes after the US Supreme Court, on Friday, upheld a US law, passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, that prohibited American companies from distributing or maintaining or updating TikTok till it was under Chinese ownership from January 19. While Joe Biden had signed the law and supported the law, he left the enforcement of the decision to Trump.

Trump said on Truth Social that he will ask companies not to let TikTok stay dark. “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. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”

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The Court said, in a unanimous judgment, “There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s ties data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.”

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which owns the platform’s proprietary algorithms that is maintained and developed in China. Chinese law mandates ByteDance to “assist or cooperate” with the Chinese government’s “intelligence work” and ensures that the Chinese government has the “power to access and control private data”.

The justices said that a law targeting a foreign adversary’s control over a communication platform was different from the kind of regulations of non-expressive activity that the court had subjected to free speech scrutiny. “Those differences — the Act’s focus on a foreign government, the Congressional determined adversary relationship between that foreign government and the United States, and the causal steps between the regulations and the alleged burden on free speech — may impact whether First Amendment scrutiny applies.”

Since 2017, TikTok has gained 170 million users in US. In 2023, US TikToK users uploaded 5.5 billion videos, which were viewed 13 trillion times.

It speaks to the company’s extraordinary leverage through donors on Trump, Trump’s belief that it helped him in the elections, and TikTok’s cache with younger Americans that the President-elect has decided that among his first actions will be keeping an app alive that Trump’s own party had pushed a ban on and that in his first term Trump himself had sought a ban through an executive order. Trump has also invited the TikTok CEO to share the stage with other American tech leaders to his inauguration. He also spoke to Xi Jinping on Friday about TikTok, among other subjects.