Trump signs executive order to pause TikTok ban, provide immunity to tech firms

President Trump signed an executive order on Monday seeking to hit pause on a law banning TikTok and to provide a liability shield to business partners of the popular video app.

According to the order, the law will be paused for 75 days and companies that work with TikTok will not be liable for doing so.

The text of the order said this will give Trump’s administration time “to pursue a resolution that protects national security while saving a platform used by 170 million Americans.”

“Essentially with TikTok I have the right to sell it or close it,” Trump said from the Oval Office after signing the executive action on Monday. “We may have to get approval from China. I’m not sure. I’m sure they’ll approve.”

Trump said his administration will work on “a joint venture” between the United States and undisclosed other entities.

“I think you have a lot of people who would be interested,” Trump said.

Trump’s action is tied to a TikTok law that took effect Sunday makes it a crime — punishable with stiff fines — for companies to support TikTok as long as the service is controlled by ByteDance, a Beijing-based tech company. Lawmakers from both parties, who passed the law in April, fear TikTok could cooperate with the Chinese government to use the app for spying or nefarious data collection.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled the app’s “well-supported” national security concerns justify a forced sale — and if TikTok remained owned by ByteDance, the clampdown on TikTok would start on Jan 19.

In response, on the eve of that date, firms that provide web hosting and cloud infrastructure to TikTok, including Oracle and Akamai, dropped the video app. Google and Apple removed TikTok from their app stores. TikTok also took the dramatic step of switching off its servers, rendering it dark for millions of Americans for about 14 hours.

But the service was restored Sunday morning, after Donald Trump, at that time still the president-elect, wrote on Truth Social that he planned to take executive action to postpone the ban law’s start date and provide legal cover to TikTok’s business partners once he entered the White House.

Companies reacted differently to Trump’s social media post. TikTok flipped its servers back on and sent a notification to all users crediting Trump with TikTok’s return. Oracle and Akamai reinstated web support.

Apple and Google, however, are holding out. And that’s because, under the law, returning a ByteDance-owned TikTok to app stores would be illegal and subject them to potentially billions of dollars in fines. Trump taking executive action does little to change that, legal experts say.

Apple, Google, Oracle and Akamai did not return requests for comment.

While Trump’s executive action Monday attempts to clarify the legal landscape for TikTok, Constitutional scholar Alan Rozenshtein of the University of Minnesota Law School said trying to extend the law’s start date and insulate companies from liability does not change an act of Congress.

“Those actions do not stop the law from being in effect. And it does not stop, let’s say, Oracle, from violating the law — which, as far as I can tell, it is doing right now,” Rozenshtein said.

The law does allow one exception: TikTok can continue to operate if Trump certifies to Congress that “significant progress” has been made toward TikTok breaking away from ByteDance’s ownership.

The law requires that Trump show Congress there are legally binding agreements in motion over ownership changes at TikTok.

Rozenshtein said if Trump tells Congress those things have happened, when they have not, in order to extend the legal start date of the ban, then “that would effectively mean one of his first acts as president would be lying to Congress.”

Some legal experts expect Trump’s executive action to be challenged in court by a tech company to seek a “declaratory judgement,” a ruling to clear up the muddy legal picture. They believe Apple and Google are concerned about potential shareholder lawsuits about the market value hit the big tech companies could take if they run afoul of a federal statute.

One important aspect of the TikTok ban law, though, is that its interpretation and enforcement is up to the White House — even if that means, technically speaking, not following the law’s requirements.

“The law confers an extraordinary amount of power upon the office of the president,” said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington who specializes in tech policy.

Still, any legal shield Trump promises by way of executive action will not hold up in court, Rozenshtein argues.

“This is not a power the president has, and he cannot wish it into existence merely by saying something and calling it an executive order,” he said.

Another risk for Apple, Google, Oracle and other firms backing TikTok: The possibility of Trump later turning against the video app and then trying to use the law in retaliation.

“The minute Trump withdraws his support — if he does — that’s when TikTok goes dark,” Calo said. “And that’s why everyone is currying Donald Trump’s favor.”

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