Within the first few hours of his second term on Monday, Jan. 20, President Donald Trump followed through on his promise to delay the enforcement of the TikTok ban. Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice not to enforce the ban for at least 75 days.
The law, passed during the Biden administration with strong bipartisan support, said TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, had to sell the social media platform to a buyer from America or one of its allies because of national security concerns or be banned starting Jan. 19. More specifically, lawmakers’ concern was China might be able to influence or tap into American data through the TikTok app.
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the law to go forward last Friday, Jan. 17.
According to Trump’s executive order, the 75-day delay will help his administration attempt to “determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security, while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans.”
Immigration
Only registered voters from the U.S. swing states are eligible for Musk’s $1M giveaway.
Musk said in exchange for the money he’s asking the recipients to be a spokesperson for the petition.
When signing the order, Trump said the U.S. should broker a deal to own half of TikTok. He estimated it could be worth $1 trillion.
“I think the US should be entitled to get half of TikTok and, congratulations, TikTok has a good partner and that would be worth, you know, could be $500 billion,” Trump said.
The TikTok app shut down temporarily over the weekend until Trump said he would issue an executive order on Day 1. After that announcement, TikTok restored service for its 170 million American users.
TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew attended Trump’s inauguration in the Capitol Rotunda. He joined other tech moguls including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
