President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to temporarily delay the ban on TikTok in the US, ordering the Justice Department to halt enforcement of the controversial law for 75 days. However, this does not mean that TikTok is saved.
Trump swiftly signed a slew of executive orders just hours after his second inauguration as US president on Monday, declaring a national emergency on the US-Mexico border, repealing federal government diversity initiatives and formally creating the Department of of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk. (“DOGE”).
Among them was Trump’s promised executive order regarding the Protecting Americans from Applications Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act (PAFACA), also known as the TikTok ban in the US. In it, Trump directed the Justice Department not to enforce the ban for two and a half months, allowing TikTok to temporarily continue operating in the US without retaliation.
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“I am directing the Attorney General to take no action to enforce the law for a period of 75 days from today, to give my administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate path forward in an orderly manner that protects security national security by avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans,” Trump’s executive order said.
The delay means the ban will now take effect on April 5, with Trump stating that he intends to “negotiate a resolution to avoid an immediate shutdown of the TikTok platform while addressing national security concerns” in the interim. The new US president previously expressed confidence that he would be able to do so last December, filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court asking it to stop the TikTok ban on that basis.
It is unclear exactly how Trump plans to broker such a deal. If PAFACA isn’t repealed, a sale of TikTok’s US operations would be the only way the app could legally stay in the country. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has given no indication that it would be willing to entertain this, repeatedly asserting that such an investment is “technologically, commercially and legally impossible.”
Mashable’s Speed of Light
Trump could try to repeal the legislation, however that would take a significant amount of time — likely much longer than TikTok’s 75-day stay of execution. As such, US users may find themselves disconnected from TikTok once again in April.
The TikTok ban is still the law, but enforcement has been suspended
TikTok added a pop-up message crediting Trump for returning to the US after a brief shutdown on January 19, 2025.
Credit: VCG / VCG via Getty Images
To be clear, Trump’s executive order does not actually make it legal for TikTok to remain in the US beyond the January 19 ban deadline. PAFACA is still in place, and TikTok is technically still banned even during this 75-day grace period.
Rather, Trump has simply directed that no penalties be imposed on TikTok or other affected apps under this law for their actions from the effective date until 75 days after his executive order. He further ordered that letters be sent to the affected entities telling them that the operation during this time will not violate the law and will not incur any liabilities.
“[E]even after the expiration of the foregoing period, the Department of Justice shall take no action to enforce the Act or impose any penalty against any entity for any conduct that occurred during the foregoing period or any period prior to the issuance of this order, including the time period from January 19, 2025, until the signing of this order,” Trump’s executive order states.
If the ban were to be enforced, TikTok could be fined up to $5,000 per US user. At 170 million such users, that would be a fine of around $850 billion – nearly three times what ByteDance estimated last November.
With a Supreme Court appeal rejected last week, TikTok now appears to have no choice but to shore up its hopes for a continued US presence on Trump. TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew was one of several tech CEOs who attended Trump’s inauguration on Monday, thanking the new US president for his support.
Trump’s self-proclaimed “warm spot” for TikTok is relatively new, as the president previously issued an executive order banning the app in 2020 during his first term in office. He then appeared to lose interest in the ban, which was never implemented before Biden lifted it a year later. Now Trump appears to have had a change of heart about TikTok, musing last December that “maybe we should keep this thing going for a while.” Apparently the millions of views his videos have racked up have gone a long way in winning him over.
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