CNN
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TikTok could go dark in the United States on Sunday, pulling itself offline after the Supreme Court upheld a ban on the Chinese-owned social media platform — but it could be back as early as Monday.
President-elect Donald Trump said he will “most likely” delay a ban on TikTok for 90 days after he takes office on Monday but noted he has not made a final decision in a phone interview with NBC News on Saturday.
“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said in the interview.
“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he added.
The suggestion of an extension is the latest twist in a saga that’s dragged on for months, leaving the fate of the app — with its 170 million US users — in limbo.
The law passed last year with bipartisan support. It required ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to either sell the app to a new, non-Chinese entity or face a ban in the United States.
Many US users told CNN they were bracing for an end to the app, including influencers and other small businesses that said they depended on the platform for a living. Still, they said, they held out hope the app would somehow be saved.
But the Supreme Court on Friday upheld the ban, dashing hopes of a last-second judicial assist.
Later on Friday, TikTok said it would go offline on Sunday unless there was intervention from the Biden administration.
The law passed last year allows the president to delay the ban from going into effect by 90 days but requires evidence that parties working to arrange a sale of TikTok to a US-owned company have made significant progress.
TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew has met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in the weeks leading up to the ban taking effect and is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
