President Biden won’t enforce a TikTok ban set to take effect Sunday, a U.S. official told the Associated Press on Thursday.
Congress passed a law requiring Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok by Jan. 19 on national security grounds. The official told the AP it would be up to the incoming Trump administration to decide whether to enforce the ban or not.
Trump has wavered in his support for the social media app. After previously calling for a ban, he has since pledged to keep it available. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday and be seated with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, said on “Fox & Friends” Thursday the law “allows for an extension as long as a viable deal is on the table.”
An attempt by Senate Democrats to extend the deadline was blocked by Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who called TikTok “a Chinese Communist spy app that addicts our kids, harvests their data, targets them with harmful and manipulative content, and spreads communist propaganda.”
ByteDance argued in front of the Supreme Court last week, and the judicial body could hand down a decision Friday.
Earlier this week, as the deadline approached, “TikTok refugees” began flocking to Xiaohongshu, a similar Chinese app.
