President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court of the United States on Friday evening to pause a controversial TikTok ban in order for his administration to “pursue a negotiated resolution”, according to a report from CNN.
The court is set to hear arguments in the case on January 10.
The law would require TikTok‘s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform to an American company or face a ban. The US Congress voted in April to ban it unless ByteDance sells the app by January 19.
CNN reported that Trump’s request would pit him against the Biden administration, which warned of “grave” national security concerns in a brief to the court on Friday.
TikTok, which has over 170 million US users, and its parent have sought to have the law struck down. But if the court does not rule in their favor and no divestment occurs, the app could be effectively banned in the United States on Jan. 19, one day before Trump takes office.
Trump reverses course
Trump’s support for TikTok is a reversal from 2020, when he tried to block the app in the United States and force its sale to American companies because of its Chinese ownership.
It also shows the significant effort by the company to forge inroads with Trump and his team during the presidential campaign.
“President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute,” said D. John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer who is also the president-elect’s pick for US solicitor general.
“Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump’s incoming administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case,” he added.
Trump previously met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in December, hours after the president-elect expressed he had a “warm spot” for the app and that he favored allowing TikTok to keep operating in the United States for at least a little while.
The president-elect also said he had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company has previously said the Justice Department has misstated its ties to China, arguing its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the United States on cloud servers operated by Oracle Corp ORCL.N while content moderation decisions that affect US users are made in the United States as well.
Free speech advocates separately told the Supreme Court on Friday the US law against TikTok evokes the censorship regimes put in place by the United States’ authoritarian enemies.
Reuters contributed to this report.
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
