The White House on Friday said that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on the Chinese-owned TikTok social media platform will ultimately fall under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
Earlier Friday, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration in upholding the ban, just three days before Trump is due to be inaugurated as president. It found that a law ordering TikTok to divest from Chinese-owned entities or face a ban does not violate the Constitution’s First Amendment.
“It ultimately goes up to me, so you’re going to see what I’m going to do,” he said.
Trump wrote in a Truth Social post shortly before the court’s decision was issued that TikTok was among the topics in his conversation on Friday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
While Trump has been critical of the ByteDance-owned platform, the president-elect has recently softened his stance. TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, has confirmed he will attend his inauguration, along with the heads of X, Facebook, Amazon, and other tech companies.
Trump has more than 10 million followers on TikTok, and he used the platform during his successful 2024 campaign to reach younger voters who use the platform.
Last April, a bipartisan bill that passed in Congress gave ByteDance 270 days to divest from TikTok or face a ban in the United States. ByteDance has said that it would not sell, although there have been reports indicating that some U.S. investors have been in talks with the company to divest.
As of Friday, the sale of TikTok does not appear imminent and it faces an app store ban on Jan. 19. On that date, new users will not be able to download the app or install updates, although preexisting users will be able to keep TikTok on their devices. However, it will eventually render the app unworkable, the Justice Department has said in court filings.
Jean-Pierre added in her statement on Friday that the Biden administration believes 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.”
High Court Ruling Agrees With Congress
The court argued, in part, that the law passed by Congress had determined that TikTok needs to be divested from ByteDance due to national security concerns that the company will collect Americans’ sensitive data on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Since at least 2014, ByteDance has had an internal CCP committee, and the company’s vice president, Zhang Fuping, serves as the company’s CCP secretary.“Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,” the court said in an unsigned opinion, adding that the law “does not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch filed short separate opinions noting some reservations about the court’s decision but going along with the outcome.
“Without doubt, the remedy Congress and the President chose here is dramatic,” Gorsuch wrote. Still, he said he was persuaded by the argument that China could get access to “vast troves of personal information about tens of millions of Americans.”
Some TikTok content creators have expressed concern about the ban and the effect it may have on their businesses.
“I’m very, very concerned about what’s going to happen over the next couple weeks,” said Desiree Hill, owner of Crown’s Corner mechanic shop in Conyers, Georgia. “And very scared about the decrease that I’m going to have in reaching customers and worried I’m going to potentially lose my business in the next six months.”
TikTok, which sued the U.S. government last year over the law, has denied it could be used as a tool of the Chinese regime. ByteDance has said it won’t sell.
