TikTok restored service Sunday after President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order to pause the ban on the wildly popular app.
On Saturday night, TikTok shut down operations in anticipation of a ban taking effect Sunday. But on Sunday afternoon, it began a comeback.
“We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans,” the company wrote on social media.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump had posted that he would issue an executive order delaying the TikTok ban by 90 days. The legal ability for such a move was included in the law.
However, Trump said his plan included at least a partial sale of TikTok assets to U.S. interests — something TikTok owner ByteDance has rejected before.
“I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,” the incoming president wrote on social media. “By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to [stay] up.”
ByteDance did not immediately respond to Trump’s proposed plan. However, previous efforts to sell the company to an American corporation have failed, and ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok.
Hours before the ban was set to take effect, TikTok blocked people from using its app on Saturday night, posting a message that read, “We’re working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible.”
A few hours later, it updated the message to include, “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.” Trump will be sworn in Monday.
In the past, Trump has gone back and forth on a TikTok ban during his political career. In June 2020, he said he was considering a ban, and in August 2020 he issued a vague executive order about the app.
But after President Biden signed the actual ban — which passed Congress with bipartisan support — into law in April 2024, Trump started to argue that he would “save TikTok” if elected.
“Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok,” Trump wrote Sunday morning. “With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”
TikTok’s sudden shutdown Saturday night came as a surprise to many. Tech experts said the so-called “TikTok ban” law did not actually prevent the app from functioning in the U.S. but instead banned it from application stores. TikTok was indeed removed from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, so it can no longer be downloaded through major channels.
“Scrolling Twitter because TikTok is gone but every tweet is about TikTok,” one social media user observed after the ban.
U.S. politicians began considering a TikTok ban in 2019, when the app first exploded in popularity among younger users. Both Republicans and Democrats said they were concerned about the company’s Chinese ownership and requirements under Chinese law to turn over user data if the government asks for it.
Various efforts to limit TikTok and the Chinese government’s access to American user data were undertaken in 2020 and 2021. However, nothing fundamentally changed about the situation, leading to the TikTok ban that was passed in April 2024.
“We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States,” the company wrote Sunday.
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