It's a busy time for President-elect Donald Trump, and if juggling his January 20 inauguration at the United States Capitol wasn't enough to contend with, he's also got the looming TikTok ban. Legislators have been wrangling with the short-form video platform and its Chinese ownership since it was first banned from U.S. government devices back in December 2019.
A lot has changed since then, with Trump himself proposing a TikTok ban on all devices during his first administration.
Much like his new love of Bitcoin, the returning POTUS seems to have had a chance of heart when it comes to TikTok. Still, as time runs out and TikTok's January 19 axe is just days away, Donald Trump could have a last-minute plan to save our social scrolling.
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According to The Washington Post, Trump could sign an executive order that would stop officials from enforcing the ban for either 60 or 90 days. The outlet says that Trump might've been spurred into making such an effort to save TikTok because it's an app he's 'widely admired' on.
Although judgment is yet to be passed, the Supreme Court looks set to proceed with the ban unless owner ByteDance sells TikTok to a non-Chinese body. There are questions about the legality of Trump's potential executive order, especially as it could unravel the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that was enacted by the United States House of Representatives in March 2024.
Alan Rozenshtein, a former national security advisor to the Justice Department, warns that executive orders aren't 'magical documents', adding: "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."
Pam Bondi is Trump's pick for attorney general, and while she declined to comment on TikTok's future, it's also thought that Trump could advise her not to enforce its ban.
There's been a recent rush of interest in ByteDance selling TikTok's U.S. operations to someone else, with big names like Elon Musk and MrBeast throwing their hat into the ring. Even Musk's status as the richest man in the world doesn't mean much here, and like he took out some substantial loans to buy Twitter in October 2022, it's not as simple as chucking his wealth at ByteDance.
TikTok is used by some 170 million Americans every month, and with 99 million downloads, it's overtaken Instagram to become the USA's most popular app. The threat of TikTok going dark is still there, but if Trump can pull it off, he's sure to score big with the younger generations.
Some think Trump could revive the $1.5 billion 'Project Texas' corporate reform package that the Biden administration rejected. Project Texas was pitched an attractive offer where the U.S. government had power over TikTok hires and programming, as well as a supposed 'kill switch' if it deemed the app was using our data for Chinese spying.
With Trump set to levy harsher tariffs on China, TikTok could be part of a bigger bargaining picture. As finance and compliance lawyer Dong Yizhi concludes: "If senior officials from China can get the talks started after Trump’s inauguration, then maybe there is a chance...But that’s a big 'if.'"