President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to temporarily delay the U.S. TikTok ban, directing the Department of Justice to hold off on enforcing the controversial law for 75 days. This doesn't mean TikTok has been saved, though.
Trump swiftly signed a slew of executive orders mere hours after his second inauguration as U.S. president on Monday, declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, abolishing the federal government's diversity initiatives, and officially creating the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency ("DOGE").
Among these was Trump's promised executive order regarding the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), also known as the U.S. TikTok ban. In it, Trump directed the Department of Justice not to enforce the ban for two and a half months, allowing TikTok to temporarily continue operating in the U.S. without reprisal.
"I am instructing the Attorney General not to take any action to enforce the Act for a period of 75 days from today to allow my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans," read Trump's executive order.
The delay means the ban will now come into force on April 5, with Trump stating that he intends to "negotiate a resolution to avoid an abrupt shutdown of the TikTok platform while addressing national security concerns" in the interim. The new U.S. president previously expressed a belief that he'd be able to do so last December, submitting an amicus brief to the Supreme Court requesting that it pause TikTok's ban on this basis.
It's unclear exactly how Trump plans to broker such a deal. Unless PAFACA is repealed, a sale of TikTok's U.S. operations would be the only way the app could legally remain in the country. TikTok's parent company ByteDance has given no indication that it would be willing to entertain this, consistently maintaining that such divestment is "technologically, commercially, and legally infeasible."
Trump may attempt to repeal the legislation, however doing so will take a significant amount of time — likely much longer than TikTok's 75-day stay of execution. As such, U.S. users could very well find themselves cut off from TikTok once more come April.
TikTok ban is still law, but enforcement has been paused
To be clear, Trump's executive order doesn't actually make it legal for TikTok to remain in the U.S. beyond the ban's Jan. 19 deadline. PAFACA is still in place, and TikTok is technically still banned even during this 75-day grace period.
Rather, Trump has simply instructed that no penalties be imposed upon TikTok or other impacted apps under this law for their actions between the time it came into effect to 75 days from his executive order. He further ordered that letters be sent to affected entities telling them that operating during this time will not violate the law or incur liabilities.
"[E]ven after the expiration of the above-specified period, the Department of Justice shall not take any action to enforce the Act or impose any penalties against any entity for any conduct that occurred during the above-specified period or any period prior to the issuance of this order, including the period of time from January 19, 2025, to the signing of this order," read Trump's executive order.
If the ban were enforced, TikTok could be fined up to $5,000 per U.S. user. At 170 million such users, would be a penalty of approximately $850 billion — almost three times ByteDance's valuation last November.
With its Supreme Court appeal having been rejected last week, TikTok now seems to have little choice but to rest its hopes for a continued U.S. presence on Trump. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was one of several tech CEOs who attended Trump's inauguration on Monday, having thanked the new U.S. president for his support.
Trump's self-proclaimed "warm spot" for TikTok is relatively new, the president having previously issued an executive order banning the app in 2020 during his first term in office. He subsequently appeared to lose interest in the ban, which was never enforced before Biden dropped it a year later. Now Trump seems to have changed his mind about TikTok, musing last December that "maybe we gotta keep this sucker around for a little while." Apparently the millions of views his videos have accumulated went a long way toward winning him over.
