Trump says he will issue executive order on Monday to get TikTok back up in US

A message reading ‘Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now’ is displayed from the TikTok app on a mobile phone screen in Los Angeles (Andy Bao/AP)

US president-elect Donald Trump has said he plans to issue an executive order that would give TikTok’s China-based parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the popular video-sharing platform is subject to a permanent US ban.

Mr Trump announced the decision in a post on his Truth Social account as millions of TikTok users in the US 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 a federal law that required them to do so if TikTok parent company ByteDance did not sell its US operation to an approved buyer by Sunday.

Mr 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,” he wrote.

The law gives the sitting president authority to grant a 90-day extension if a viable sale is under way.

Although investors made a few offers, ByteDance previously said it would not sell.

In his post on Sunday, Mr Trump said he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture”, but it was not immediately clear if he was referring to the government or an American company.

“By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to stay up,” Mr Trump wrote.

“Without US approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”

The federal law required ByteDance to cut ties with the platform’s US operations by Sunday due to national security concerns posed by the app’s Chinese roots.

The service interruption TikTok instituted hours early caught most users by surprise (George Walker IV/AP)

The law passed with wide bipartisan support in April, and US President Joe Biden quickly signed it.

TikTok and ByteDance sued on First Amendment grounds, and the US Supreme Court upheld the statute on Friday.

Millions of TikTok users in the US were no longer able to watch or post videos on the platform as of Saturday night.

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US,” a pop-up message informed users who opened the TikTok app and tried to scroll through videos.

“Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

The service interruption TikTok instituted hours early caught most 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 were expected to continue to have access to videos until the app stopped working due to a lack of updates.

A message reading ‘Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now’ is displayed from the TikTok app on a mobile phone screen in Nashville, Tennessee (George Walker IV/AP)

The company’s app was also removed from prominent app stores, including the ones operated by Apple and Google.

Apple told customers with its devices that it also took down other apps developed by TikTok’s China-based parent company, including one that some social media influencers had promoted as an alternative.

The Biden administration stressed in recent days that it did not intend to implement or enforce the nationwide ban before Mr Trump takes office on Monday.

Mr Trump, who once favoured a TikTok ban, said in an NBC News interview on Saturday that he was thinking about granting ByteDance a 90-day extension to find an approved buyer for the app’s US operations.

“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned,” read the pop-up message the app’s users now see under the headline, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”

The only option the message gives to US users is to close the app or click another option leading them to the platform’s website.

There, users are shown the same message and given the option to download their data, an action that TikTok previously said may take days to process.

Apple said in a statement on its website that three TikTok apps and eight other ByteDance-created apps were no longer available in the US, while visitors to the country might have limited access.

The removed apps included video-editing program CapCut, art editing program Hypic and Lemon8, a video-sharing app that includes some of the same features as TikTok.

“Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” the company said.

Apple said the apps would remain on the devices of people who already had them installed, but in-app purchases and new subscriptions were no longer possible and that operating updates to iPhones and iPads might affect the apps’ performance.

The federal law banning TikTok allows the sitting president to extend Sunday’s deadline by 90 days if a sale is in progress.

But no clear buyers have emerged, and ByteDance previously said it would not sell TikTok.

Mr Trump told NBC News on Saturday that if he decides to grant such an extension, it would “probably” be announced on Monday after he is sworn in as president.

TikTok chief executive Shou Chew is expected to attend Mr Trump’s inauguration with a prime seating location.

Mr Chew posted a video late on Saturday thanking Mr Trump for his commitment to work with the company to keep the app available in the US and a “strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship”.

“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform. One who has used talk to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process,” Mr Chew said.