President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering intervening in the TikTok controversy as soon as he enters office.
One day before he is inaugurated, the nationwide ban on the short video app owned by a tech giant based in China is set to go into effect and Trump is reportedly mulling the idea of reversing that with an executive order.
According to The Washington Post, Trump is “considering an executive order once in office that would suspend enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale law for 60 to 90 days, buying the administration time to negotiate a sale or alternative solution.”
TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, has been ordered by President Joe Biden to sell the app by Jan. 19. Without a sale, the app will be banned in the U.S. and a current appeal to the Supreme Court does not look promising for the company.
“Trump has been mulling ways to save the day for the wildly popular video app, talking through unconventional dealmaking and legal maneuvers such as an executive order that would unravel the law passed by Congress last year with bipartisan support, according to two people familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks,” WaPo reported Wednesday.
“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said last month on his own TikTok account where he has nearly 15 million followers.
The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the ban which was issued by Biden based on concerns that the communist Chinese government could use the app to spy on Americans.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We won young people and I think that’s a big credit to TikTok so I’m not opposed to TikTok. Lets see what happens…” pic.twitter.com/USrjRZ9skd
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 14, 2025
“Trump, one of the people said, is eager to be seen as ‘making a deal’ and signing an executive order soon after the deadline’s passing — just one day before his inauguration — would give the proceedings a cinematic flourish,” the Washington Post noted.
But a former national security adviser to the Justice Department told the outlet that executive orders “are not magical documents. They’re just press releases with nicer stationery,”
“TikTok will still be banned, and it will still be illegal for Apple and Google to do business with them. But it will make the president’s intention not to enforce the law that much more official,” Alan Rozenshtein said.
“Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” Trump said in a Truth Social post where he had also shared data on his TikTok account.
The chief executive of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, last month. According to The New York Times, he is reportedly planning to attend his inauguration next week. The newspaper cited sources who said the CEO “has been invited to sit in a position of honor on the dais.”
“The invitation to the executive, Shou Chew, went out from the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss Monday’s inauguration. Mr. Chew will join tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk at the event; Jeff Bezos has also been invited,” the outlet reported.