TikTok Goes Dark, Restarts After Executive Order Commitment From Trump

Update on Jan. 19, 2024, at 2:12 p.m. ET: TikTok restored service on Sunday, saying it was restoring service after President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order ensuring service on his first day in office.

In a statement about 10 a.m. on his social media network Truth Social, Trump wrote:

I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also 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.

I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars - maybe trillions.

Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2025 – As the internet buzzed on Saturday about potential future owners of TikTok on Saturday — including the AI search engine Perplexity – the social network’s parent company on Saturday began to take the platform offline.

The announcement, posted on the TikTok app beginning at around 9 p.m. ET, blamed the U.S. law, passed last April and upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday for forcing the shuttering. 

In the announcement on TikTok, the company, which is owned by the Chinese-controlled entity ByteDance, said:

“We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable. We’re woking to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible, and we appreciate your support. Please stay tuned.”

A subsequent message was even more pointed:

A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. 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!

For this user, TikTok was still available at 10:30 p.m., but was unavailable by 11 p.m.

What’s the reason for the shutdown?

The 36 hours between the beginning of Sunday on the East Coast and the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Monday at Noon creates an unusual backdrop for both President Joe Biden and Trump — as well as TikTok itself – to cast blame on exactly who was cutting off a service used by 170 million Americans. That’s more than half of the people in the country.

The app is the fourth largest social network in the world, with 1.58 billion users. That ranks only behind Facebook’s 3 billion users, YouTube’s 2.5 billion users, and Instagram’s 2 billion users. 

After the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, the White House issued a statement that:

“TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law. Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday.”

Yet after TikTok warned on Friday evening that it would be forced to go dark if the Biden administration didn’t promise to delay enforcement of the law penalties on TikTok’s service providers. In response, prompting White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to call TikTok’s threat to go offline a “stunt.”

In a statement on his social network Truth Social after the Supreme Court’s Friday morning decision, Trump himself said:

“The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!” 

Trump made that post less than two hours after another one saying that he had spoken with Chairman Xi Jinping of China about TikTok and other topics.

On December 27, Trump asked the court to pause enforcement of the law so he could work out a “political resolution” to the issue during his second term.

Potential buyers?

Saturday’s dramatic denouement to a multi-year saga poses some perplexing puzzles: Will ByteDance, and the Chinese government, permit TikTok – or the American user base of TikTok – to be sold to an American entity?

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew had been scheduled to be seated on the dais for the inauguration along with tech billionaires Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and owner of X, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, (whose company controls Facebook and Instagram), OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. 

Among the rumored entities who have proposed buying TikTok are real estate mogul Frank McCourt, with Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary joining the effort, as well as former Trump administration Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Perplexity AI, the search engine that has recently gained steam, officially made a play for TikTok on Saturday, according to CNBC, submitting a bid to its parent company, ByteDance, to create a new merged entity combining Perplexity, TikTok U.S. and new capital partners.

CNBC said the new structure would allow for most of ByteDance’s existing investors to retain their equity stakes and  bring more video to Perplexity.

The leadup to the cutoff

On Wednesday, Broadband Breakfast Live Online hosted a discussion, “Is TikTok Toast?”, a discussion featured two critics of TikTok and two advocates who had urged the Supreme Court to find some way to allow the service to continue, citing dangers to the First Amendment and democracy.

TikTok Ban Looms: What Does It Mean?

The ban, which would take effect January 19, requires Chinese-owned ByteDance to sell TikTok or face removal from app stores.

Broadband BreakfastBroadband Breakfast

Yet the Supreme Court soundly rejected that argument, putting the final nail in the coffin for Byte Dance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok.

The advocacy group Public Knowledge, issued a statement Friday warning that the decision sets a “dangerous precedent” for free speech. "By accepting the government's broad national security claims without requiring it to pursue less restrictive alternatives, the Court has given future administrations a roadmap to shut down any foreign-affiliated platform or media company they disfavor," said Morgan Wilsmann, a policy analyst.

But while many First Amendment advocates raised concerns about the law forcing divestment, others American techies said that Byte Dance needed to be curtailed.

Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, said that Trump “flip-flopped when one of his significant bundlers, Jeff Yass of Susquehanna Investments, who's a major U.S. investor in TikTok, made investments in his campaign.” He noted that TikTok CEO Chew recently visited Mar-a-Lago to highlight Trump's campaign content performance on the platform.

Security concerns remain central to the Broadband Breakfast discussion. Tony Dahbura, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, supported the ban, citing China's data collection practices.

"The Chinese government exerts influence, if not outright control, over ByteDance," Dahbura said. "TikTok collects a lot of data about Americans, including geolocation data, web browser history, and other personal data."

Kovacevich supported this view, describing TikTok as a tool for Chinese state influence.

"When we look at an example like Twitter of a new buyer coming in and changing the platform," countered Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press. "The ultimate question is will Americans, content creators who are using TikTok for their livelihood, have the same kind of access to information?"