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President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order on Monday that would guarantee companies that helped TikTok stay operational would not be held liable for violating the ban passed by Congress.
TikTok suspended the service this weekend ahead of a Sunday deadline that required ByteDance, the app’s Chinese owner, to sell the video app to avoid a ban on app stores that allow downloads.
“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay in the dark!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.
“On Monday, I will issue an executive order to extend the time period before the statutory bans go into effect, so we can make a deal to protect our national security,” the president-elect said.
Trump added that his order would ensure that the companies that helped TikTok stay in business would not face “any liability.”
Earlier on Sunday, Mike Waltz, a Florida lawmaker who will become national security adviser when Trump is inaugurated on Monday, told CNN that the president-elect would consider allowing further Chinese ownership, but with a “firewall” to ensure data applications “protected here on American soil”.
Trump said in his post on Truth Social that he would like the US to “have a 50% ownership position in the joint venture.”
“By doing this, we’re saving TikTok, keeping it in good hands and letting it have its say [sic] up,” Trump said. “Without US approval, there’s no TikTok. With our approval, it’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars — maybe trillions.”
“My initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners with the US getting 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the US and any purchase we choose.”
Lawmakers and U.S. security officials believe the Chinese government could use TikTok to obtain Americans’ personal information that would facilitate espionage. TikTok denies that China has any control over the app.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the ban, which took effect on Sunday. On Saturday, Trump said he would “most likely” extend the sales deadline for TikTok, which has been downloaded by 170 million Americans, by 90 days.
But some Republican lawmakers, including Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts, said in a statement that “there is no legal basis for any ‘extension’.”
One person involved in the drafting of the TikTok law said there was no provision in the law for an extension beyond the January 19 deadline.
The law allowed for a 90-day extension if certain conditions were met — including evidence of “substantial progress” toward the sale and “binding agreements” enabling execution — but only if they came before the deadline.
In a separate interview with CBS television, Waltz said Trump needs time to evaluate possible deals to save the app.
“What we need between now and Monday is to buy the president some time to evaluate these deals and if it goes dark, that’s obviously going to be extremely problematic,” he said.
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, told NBC that he believed that when Trump said “save TikTok,” the president-elect was thinking of ways “to try to force a real sale.”
In his first term, Trump issued an executive order to stop TikTok from operating in the US, but it was blocked by the courts. His administration also tried to strike a deal that would ensure China could not access the data. China’s national security laws require Chinese companies to hand over data when ordered to do so by the government.
Trump last year voiced opposition to congressional takedown or ban legislation, saying it would help Facebook, which banned him from its platform for two years. Facebook competes with TikTok through its Instagram app.
