President-elect Donald J. Trump is considering an executive order to allow TikTok to continue operating despite a pending legal ban until new owners are found, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The possible executive order, <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/15/trump-tiktok-ban-executive-order/” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>previously reported by The Washington Postis under discussion as TikTok faces a Sunday deadline to be banned in the United States unless it finds a new owner. The popular video sharing app is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. Republicans have said for years that they view the app, which has been downloaded on millions of smartphones, as a national security risk. It has become a rare issue that has united both parties in Congress.
If the Supreme Court upholds the law, which will ban the app unless ByteDance sells it to a non-Chinese company, special treatment from Trump could be the only way for TikTok to continue operating in the United States in the short term. The law requires app store operators like Apple and Google and cloud computing providers to stop distributing TikTok in the United States.
An executive order could attempt to direct the government not to enforce the law or delay its enforcement to complete a deal, a measure past presidents have used to challenge the laws. It's unclear whether an executive order would survive legal challenges or persuade app stores and cloud computing companies to take actions that could expose them to huge penalties.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein, a former Justice Department national security adviser and professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said an executive order should be “taken with a medium-sized rock.” Such an order is not law, he said, and would not legally change legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Biden.
While there is speculation that the app will continue to work if it has already been downloaded, the law also affects internet hosting companies like Oracle and other cloud computing providers, and it is unclear how video loading times may respond. and the functionality of the application.
A person close to Trump's team said some of his allies had vague conversations about buying TikTok, but did not provide details. Biden, whose term ends Monday, a day after the ban takes effect, is also under pressure to find a way to save the app.
The New York Times reported Wednesday night that TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump's inauguration on Monday and was offered a seat on the dais. TikTok declined to comment.
Chew is expected to be joined on the stand by other technology executives: Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Meta; Jeff Bezos, the founder of amazon; Elon Musk, Trump's mega-donor; and Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, who personally donated $1 million to the inaugural committee.
Trump had previously backed a ban on TikTok, but publicly changed his stance last year, shortly after meeting with Jeff Yass, a Republican mega-donor who owns a large stake in ByteDance.
Trump has said they did not discuss the company. But Yass helped found the trading firm Susquehanna International Group and is a major supporter of the conservative lobby group Club for Growth. The group has hired people with ties to Trump, such as Kellyanne Conway, his former top adviser, and Republican adviser David Urban, to lobby for TikTok in Washington.
TikTok has also worked to make inroads into Trump's team through Tony Sayegh, who was a Treasury official during the first Trump administration and now heads Susquehanna's public affairs.
Sayegh has relationships with the Trump family and was a central part of the campaign's decision to join TikTok this summer. Several family members, including Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Kai Trump, the president-elect's granddaughter, have also joined the app.
Trump's interest in TikTok is not exclusively due to his advisors. He got to see how well videos about him worked on the platform, and his advisers credited him with helping him expand his reach to a new type of voter during the campaign.
Any action Trump may take regarding TikTok is complicated. The law gives the president the ability to extend the deadline for a sale only if there is “significant progress” toward a deal that would put the company in the hands of a non-Chinese owner.
It also requires that the agreement be able to be completed within 90 days of an extension. It's unclear exactly how an extension will work if Trump tries to implement it after the ban takes effect.
TikTok has maintained throughout its court challenge to the law that such a sale is unfeasible in part due to the prescribed time frame. A group led by billionaire Frank McCourt has made a bid to buy the app (albeit without its powerful algorithm) in recent months.
Trump could also try to circumvent the law by ordering the government not to enforce it.
But app store operators and cloud computing providers could demand more than a soft assurance from Trump that he won't punish them if they don't enforce the ban, said Ryan Calo, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law. . The potential legal liability for companies that violate the law is significant: Penalties can reach $5,000 per person allowed to use TikTok once the ban goes into effect.
“You could have a policy to not enforce this ban,” said Calo, who was part of a group of professors who urged the Supreme Court to overturn the TikTok law. “But I think maybe conservative companies would just say, 'OK, they're not going to enforce it.' But it's on the books and can be enforced at any time.'”
Trump's pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, has declined to say whether she would enforce the law.
“I can't speak to pending litigation,” he said at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “But I will talk to all the career prosecutors who are handling the case.”
Trump has a third option: appeal to Congress to reverse a policy he passed overwhelmingly with broad bipartisan support last year.
“Congress can undo this at any time,” Calo said.
On Thursday, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor that he was concerned about the possibility of a ban on TikTok.
“It's clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, of so many influencers who have built a good network of followers,” he said. He added that he had made those views clear to the Biden administration and accused Republicans of blocking a bill that would have extended the deadline for a ban by 270 days.
