gavel, court, FTC ruling

With the fate of TikTok ticking to a Jan. 19 ban amid rumors Elon Musk might scoop it up, developers and app stores are scrambling in the social media space — perhaps none more than Meta Platforms Inc., which would benefit greatly from a ban of its rival.

A ban became a greater possibility after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday to uphold a law to ban the Chinese-owned social media network in the U.S.

“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But 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, unanimous opinion.

So, what’s next?

President-elect Donald Trump is pondering an executive order to allow the popular video-sharing app company to continue operating, according to a Washington Post report. In an interview with NBC over the weekend, Trump said he is likely to sign an executive order on Monday, giving TikTok a 90-day extension. [UPDATE: On Monday, President Trump instructed the U.S. attorney general to not enforce the ban for 75 days while his administration determines “the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown” of TikTok.]

Trump is to take office Jan. 20, one day after the deadline for TikTok to either sell to a non-Chinese company or face a ban. The law requires app store operators like Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google and cloud-computing providers to stop distributing TikTok in the U.S., or face fines.

“If I had to guess, Trump will try to leverage the ban to negotiate a deal with TikTok. Whether that is to divest — which I doubt the Chinese will ever agree to — or to allow greater oversight by the United States — which would be a mistake in my opinion as it would allow China to continue to engage in espionage as long as they can fool our oversight authorities, which they probably can,” Kirk McGill, a First Amendment expert from national law firm Hall Estill, said in an email.
“If the ban goes into effect, TikTok is no longer permitted to be listed on any app store or accessible through the internet. So people with the app can still use it, but it can’t be updated and no new user can download it,” says Dr. McGill. “However, TikTok itself announced that it would shut down completely on Sunday night if it didn’t get relief.”

Adding to the intrigue, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to sit at the dais at Trump’s inauguration, along with X owner Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to a New York Times report.

Dan Ives, a tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, said an executive action would delay the ban for 90 days, leaving time to find a buyer of TikTok or a formal partnership with an American tech company. “We continue to believe Musk will be heavily involved in finding a solution for TikTok and ultimately could build a consortium to buy TikTok,” Ives said in a note Friday. “We also believe Oracle could play a key role in any deal given their key technology partnership with TikTok.”

Or Trump could ask the Justice Department not to enforce the law once he takes office, Ives added.

The most tantalizing scenario has officials at Byte Dance, which owns TikTok, evaluating a potential sale of U.S. operations of TikTok to Musk and giving its control to X. [On Saturday, Perplexity submitted a bid to ByteDance to merge with TikTok U.S. and new capital partners, CNBC reported.]

With more than 170 million U.S. users, TikTok could dramatically help X’s flagging advertising, and data generated from TikTok would greatly benefit xAI, the artificial intelligence of X.

Most younger viewers, who voraciously watch TikTok, are unlikely to care who owns the platform — as long as it remains available in the U.S. A serious onlooker will be Facebook parent Meta, which has hemorrhaged younger users to TikTok and YouTube shorts.

“It’s not a coincidence that we’re seeing companies like Meta capitulating to political pressures [from the incoming Trump administration] just as this law is poised to go into effect,” Sarah Shugars, a Rutgers–New Brunswick assistant professor of communication, said in an email. “Unsubstantiated fears over possible Chinese influence drove action against this platform but opened the door for government censorship of any platform deemed distasteful by political elites. Ironically, many U.S.-based tech leaders have welcomed the ban of a popular rival, but the repercussions of this precedent could easily put them in the crosshairs next.”