Trump Says He Will Give TikTok a Reprieve, 5 Years After His Executive Order to Effectively Ban the App
President-elect Donald Trump is changing his tune on TikTok.
Nearly five years after signing an executive order that would effectively ban the use of TikTok during his first term, the 78-year-old President of the United States has said he will issue a reprieve with an executive order after his inauguration Monday (January 20), pushing for the app to seek a joint venture with a U.S. partner.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday (January 19) he wrote: “I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark. I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture.”
There’s still no indication from TikTok parent company ByteDance that it will agree to a deal.
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Trump said he intends to “make a deal to protect our national security,” and “there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.” He also speculated that TikTok with full access to the U.S. market is “worth hundreds of billions of dollars — maybe trillions.”
Back in August 2020, Trump imposed sanctions against TikTok to put pressure on the Chinese-owned app to sell its U.S. assets to an American company.
Any transaction ByteDance and U.S. citizens was to be be outlawed for national security reasons. See the executive order.
TikTok announced plans to file legal action challenging the order later that month. In September, TikTok filed a request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the app being banned by Trump, which was approved.
After Trump left office, President Joe Biden continued to pursue the ban on TikTok out of national security concerns.
Another social media app suspended services along with TikTok over the weekend.