DOJ wants Supreme Court to reject Trump’s request to delay TikTok ban

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking the Supreme Court to reject president-elect Donald Trump’s request to delay a law that would ban TikTok in the US if it isn’t sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance by January 19, 2025.

In April 2024, the US Senate passed a law requiring TikTok’s parent company to divest the app before January 19, 2025. If the app isn’t sold by then, it will be banned in the United States.

TikTok roughly has 170 million users in the United States. However, many politicians claim that the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) control over TikTok poses a significant risk to the country’s national security, including espionage and covert operations using sensitive data from US users.

The Act is designed to sever ByteDance’s control, and therefore the PRC’s control, over TikTok.

In December 2024, president-elect Donald Trump filed a so-called amicus curiae, a court document in which he asked the Supreme Court to postpone its decision regarding the TikTok ban. In the letter he wrote he wants to negotiate a deal that can save TikTok and at the same time handle national security issues.

The DOJ argues that postponing the ban isn’t an option. “That requested relief is more properly characterized as a temporary injunction and thus is appropriate only if the plaintiff establishes, among other things, a likelihood of success on the merits,” the DOJ states.

Besides, Congress agrees that the PRC’s control of TikTok through ByteDance poses a profound threat to the United States’ national security. “As the court of appeals recognized, that concern is ‘well founded, not speculative’,” the DOJ argues.

The video platform objected to the Act, arguing it would infringe Americans’ First Amendments rights to free speech.

“We believe the court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights,” TikTok said in a statement.

This argument is at the heart of the case that the Supreme Court will hear. The first hearing starts on January 10.