TikTok said Sunday it was restoring service to users in the United States just hours after the popular video-sharing platform went dark in response to a federal ban, which President-elect Donald Trump said he would try to pause by executive order on his first day in office.
Trump said he planned to issue the order to give TikTok’s China-based parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the ban takes full effect. He announced the move on his Truth Social account as millions of U.S. TikTok users awoke to discover they could no longer access the TikTok app or platform.
Google and Apple removed the app from their digital stores to comply with the law, which required them to do so if TikTok parent company ByteDance didn’t sell its U.S. operation by Sunday. The law, which passed with wide bipartisan support in April, allows for steep fines.
The company that runs TikTok in the U.S. said in a post on X that Trump's post had provided “the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans.”
Some users reported soon after TikTok's statement that the app was working again, and TikTok’s website appeared to be functioning for at least some people. Even as TikTok was flickering back on, it remained unavailable for download in Apple and Google’s app stores. Neither Apple or Google responded to messages seeking comment Sunday.
The law that took effect Sunday required ByteDance to cut ties with the platform’s U.S. operations due to national security concerns posed by the app’s Chinese roots. However, the statute gave the sitting president authority to grant a 90-day extension if a viable sale was underway.
Although investors made a few offers, ByteDance previously said it would not sell. Trump said his order would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect” and “confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”
“Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations,” Trump wrote.
It was not immediately clear how Trump's promised action would fare from a legal standpoint since the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban on Friday and the statute came into force the day before Trump's return to the White House.
Some lawmakers who voted for the sale-of-ban law, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans, remain in favor of it. Sen Tom Cotton of Arkansas warned companies Sunday not to provide TikTok with the technical support it needs to function as it did before.
“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from (the Justice Department), but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” Cotton wrote on X. “Think about it.”
The on-and-off availability of TikTok came after the Supreme Court ruled that the risk to national security posed by TikTok’s ties to China outweighed concerns about limiting speech by the app or its millions of U.S. users.
When TikTok users in the U.S. tried to watch or post videos on the platform as of Saturday night, they saw a pop-up message under the headline, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message said. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
The service interruption TikTok instituted hours early caught many users by surprise. Experts had said the law as written did not require TikTok to take down its platform, only for app stores to remove it. Current users had been expected to continue to have access to videos until a lack of updates caused the app to stop working.
“The community on TikTok is like nothing else, so it’s weird to not have that anymore,” content creator Tiffany Watson, 20, said Sunday.
Watson said she had been in denial about the looming shutdown and with the space time on her hands plans to focus on bolstering her presence on Instagram and YouTube.
“There are still people out there who want beauty content,” Watson said.
The company’s app also was removed late Saturday from prominent app stores. Apple told customers with its devices that it also took down other apps developed by ByteDance. They included Lemon8, which some influencers had promoted as a TikTok alternative, the popular video editing app CapCut and photo editor Hypic.
“Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” the company said.
Trump's plan to spare TikTok on his first day in office reflected the ban's coincidental timing and the unusual mix of political considerations surrounding a social media platform that first gained popularity with often silly videos featuring dances and music clips.
During his first presidential term, Trump in 2020 issued executive orders banning TikTok and the Chinese messaging app WeChat, moves that courts subsequently blocked. When momentum for a ban emerged in Congress last year, however, he opposed the legislation. Trump has since credited TikTok with helping him win support from young voters in last year's presidential election.
Despite its own part in getting the nationwide ban enacted, the Biden administration stressed in recent days that it did not intend to implement or enforce the ban before Trump takes office on Monday.
In the nine months since Congress passed the sale-or-ban law, no clear buyers emerged, and ByteDance publicly insisted it would not sell TikTok. But Trump said he hoped his administration could facilitate a deal to “save” the app.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration with a prime seating location.
Chew posted a video late Saturday thanking Trump for his commitment to work with the company to keep the app available in the U.S. and taking a “strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”
Trump's choice for national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told CBS News on Sunday that the president-elect discussed TikTok going dark in the U.S. during a weekend call with Chinese President Xi Jinping “and they agreed to work together on this.”
On Saturday, artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance to create a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok's U.S. business, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Perplexity is not asking to purchase the ByteDance algorithm that feeds TikTok user’s videos based on their interests and has made the platform such a phenomenon.
Other investors also eyed TikTok. “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary recently said a consortium of investors that he and billionaire Frank McCourt offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash. Trump’s former treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, also said last year that he was putting together an investor group to buy TikTok.
In Washington, lawmakers and administration officials have long raised concerns about TikTok, warning the algorithm that fuels what users see is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities. But to date, the U.S. has not publicly provided evidence of TikTok handing user data to Chinese authorities or tinkering with its algorithm to benefit Chinese interests.
Kanis Leung in Hong Kong and Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta and Barbara Ortutay in Oakland, California, contributed to this story.
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
32 Comments
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TaiwanIsNotChina
What were they too stupid not to prevent the app from stopping functioning in the first place? Also this is now Trump's problem to demonstrate how he is winning bigly.
BeerDeliveryGuy
Ok lemme get this straight.
2020 Trump:
This TikTok grandfather’s Clock is a a threat. I don’t like it.
2020 Dems: GenZ of AMERIKA! Trump is trying to take away your freedom of expression!
2023 Dems: Urrt the MAGA deplorables learned how to use TikTok! Ban it immediately!
2024 Trump: Well TikTak is a very good, very strong mint candy. Maybe the strongest. Agent whispers in ear
Oh, I mean, TikTok may have some merit if we can buy it and make it great and American. Let’s make a deal.
Tokyo Guy
So on his first day in office he's going to resolve the Ukraine situation, ensure the ceasefire in the middle East holds, arrest and deport like every illegal in the country, decide on TikTok's future, and presumably have time to watch whatever news channel will tell the biggest lie about his inauguration.
That would be quite a first day.
maxjapank
I do not use TikTok and live in Japan, so the ban doesn't affect me either way. But when 352 Congressmen, 79 Senators, and the Supreme Court 9-0, uphold a ban or forced sale, it makes me wonder why. I know that some have come out and said that there wasn't any substantial proof of a National Security threat. But the votes were very much one-sided by both Dems and Republicans.
Blacklabel
Thanks President Trump!
TorafusuTorasan
GOP flip flops over the safety of this app risks confusing the tender youth, one of whom already burned the office of a GOP congressperson over his TikTok stance.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Except for all your statements about the Dems you are 100% correct.
TorafusuTorasan
GOP hardliner Senators Tom Cotton and Pete Ricketts say there is no legal basis for granting an extension to ByteDance to sell the app. Lets see if Trump flips on them for going along with his 2020 executive order to take down TikTok.
Garthgoyle
If it's based on what Trump said, well... He said he would end the Russia/Ukraine war with one phone call, even before he got sworn.
Also, why is Trump interested in saving TilTok now? What changed?
Geeter Mckluskie
It's going to be a long 4 years for you. You might want to pace yourself
Tokyo Guy
I could be wrong, but wasn't it TikTokers who pranked Trump by grabbing free tickets to his events and then never showing up, thus leading to half empty venues? They sort of teamed up with some K-pop fans.
I would have thought that would have been enough to drive the felon in chief into enough of a rage to try and get it banned then and there.
Maybe there's a more powerful player involved. And by powerful, I mean of course richer.
lincolnman
Trump wins an award! He's gets a "Full Flip-Flop" for his "180" on Tik-Tok...
Trump 2020: "President Donald Trump issued an executive order late Thursday prohibiting transactions with the parent company of the popular video-sharing app TikTok. The order, set to take effect on Sept. 20, bars Americans and U.S. companies from conducting transactions with the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, citing “national security” concerns."
Trump 2025: "Trump said he planned to issue the executive order to give TikTok’s China-based parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the ban takes full effect."
So what changed? Do you really have to ask?
Just like with immigration, a bunch of ultra-rich businessmen made $million donations to Trump - and he FLIPPED...
It's the way things work in MAGA-world - there are no values or issues - there's just dollars.
Trump would ban all guns in the US in a heartbeat if a bunch of rich dudes gave him ten million...
Face it MAGA-friends - you got played...
onedragon
I am in California, and most of the tech guys want to give the Trump administration a chance.
His win is nothing like his first time around. The left is leaning Trump.
Geeter Mckluskie
And let us now welcome the 47th President of the United States of America
yakyak
The issue is not the app. The issue is the Chinese government collects all data from users worldwide.
Yes, this is a national security threat for any country. The solution is to sell off the US version to an American company or shut it down. The shutdown was to take place just before the inauguration and Trump needs to be the President and understand all that is involved so the app can be creatively sold to an American company and use the administration's skills so as not to offend the Chinese. There is a lot of money and politics in play here. Biden could never close that deal.
isabelle
This fallacious argument yet again. The ban does not contravene the First Amendment (as confirmed even by the Trump-staffed SCOTUS), and it censors precisely nothing.
The reason is that it's not the "speech" which would be banned, but the platform. People can still post exactly the same speech: just not on a platform that is controlled by an aggressive, totalitarian state.
isabelle
Yes, as I mentioned on another thread, Trump's reversal is likely due -- at least in part -- to one of his major donors having a huge stake in TikTok.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-tiktok-ban-reversal-after-meeting-megadonor-stake/story?id=108013785
My take (and that of many others) is that he cares more for himself and money than protecting the country from an enemy state that can use TikTok to harvest data, control what millions of people do and don't see, and promote pro-CCP narratives and disinformation.
antibotter
How it actually happened:
deanzaZZR
Holy smokes. This seems really dangerous if true! Please provide the evidence that "the Chinese government collects all data from users worldwide". I am also curious, if true, for what purpose? Do the old guys want to learn a new dance move to bust out on the dance floor?
lincolnman
Trump, once again, showing how much he supports Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness...
Just like with immigration where he sided with his uber-rich Top 1% buddies and shafted his anti-immigrant base, Trump is now siding with the Chinese over his own national security experts...how's that for diversity and inclusiveness...
Who'd have think - MAGA is really going to be "Make Wokeness Great Again"....
ROFL...
Blacklabel
170 million people (voters and future voters) wanted this, President Trump gave it to them. They now owe him a sense of gratitude.
they should not be allowed to conveniently forget who turned it off against their wishes and who heard their voices and turned it back on for the people.
lincolnman
President Xi and I imagine more than 170 million Chinese...
I'm sure Xi and his fellow Communists are extremely grateful...to find out how much, all you have to do us look for the payoff in Trump's secret Chinese bank account...
isabelle
Perhaps you missed my comment to you on the other thread that says:
1) I could provide links, but you won't read them and will likely dismiss them as fake news, as you usually do, so I won't waste my time.
2) China's 2017 National Intelligence Law compels all citizens to assist in matters of state security (defined arbitrarily by the CCP). Therefore, even if TikTok/ByteDance has done nothing wrong (and it certainly has), this alone is enough to ban TikTok as, in cases of national security, you don't wait for "evidence" that an enemy state has done you wrong: you act to prevent this before it happens.
Absolutely anything it wants, either now or at any time in the future.
That's why it's so dangerous for an enemy state like the PRC to have the information in the first place.
deanzaZZR
Yeah, I quickly read that dross last night and rightfully ignored it. TikTok is a registered company in the USA and thusly operates under USA law.
But since you are here again, do provide proof that TikTok is a national security threat. Surely Congress would provide such proof in the hearings, debates, etc. before forcing the sale of a company worth billions of dollars. Looking forward to this concrete proof.
isabelle
The ban was enacted by lawmakers elected via the people in a democratic process.
Nothing was done against the wishes of the electorate.
isabelle
Then, you will learn nothing, and likely remain stuck in a pro-PRC bubble.
Spend my time so you can ignore it again? No thanks.
If you really wish to learn about the issues (and I sincerely hope you do), you can easily find this information yourself. It would be far better than remaining stuck in a pro-PRC bubble, but the choice is obviously yours.
OssanAmerica
The US Supreme Court upheld the ban on TikTok. It's a far greater security issue than US Steel being bought by an ally.
Why the Trump 180? What did Xi offer him? LOL
lincolnman
Wow, has there ever been a bigger FLIP-FLOP than this?
Trump 2023: "Has anybody noticed that everyone wants to go after, and destroy, TIKTOK due to China influence and National Security," he says on Truth Social. "When I wanted to disable TIKTOK 3 years ago, I was met with opposition from RINOS [Republicans In Name Only] to Democrats to everyone else. They actually went to court in an effort to stop me. Now they realize I was right, and have changed their tune."
Trump 2025: "Why would I want to ban TikTok?"
Yep, I guess you could call that a "change of tune"...or maybe "how much was the payoff and bribe?"
jib
Yes, that is exactly what he will do. Welcome to a new golden age in the USA!
TaiwanIsNotChina
My popcorn is ready. The Dunning-Kruger is strong with your team.
Jind
Trump does not have the authority to issue a 90 extension unless only if a viable sale was underway.
There is none.
It's just an app and let it go.
rocketpig
That's why it's so dangerous for an enemy state like the PRC to have the information in the first place...And the reason why we all should not eat Chinese food as your DNA will get into the wrong hands