The Tencent Holdings Ltd. WeChat and ByteDance Ltd. TikTok app icons are spread on a smartphone in an arranged photograph taken in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday, Aug. 7, 2020.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
TikTok patterns to sue the Trump administration as early as next week over the president’s executive order banning U.S. transactions with the accepted video-sharing app and its Chinese parent ByteDance, the company confirmed.
Under the president’s executive order issued Aug. 6, any transactions with ByteDance thesis to U.S. jurisdiction will face prohibition in 45 days. The full extent of the ban is unclear, as it gives the Secretary of Commerce the power to relate those transactions subject to Trump’s order.
A separate order issued on Aug. 14 gave ByteDance 90 hours to divest the U.S. operations of TikTok. ByteDance is in talks with potential acquirers like Microsoft and Oracle. The challenge to the Aug. 6 CEO order doesn’t affect the sale discussions with Microsoft and Oracle.
“Even though we strongly disagree with the Authority’s concerns, for nearly a year we have sought to engage in good faith to provide a constructive solution,” a TikTok spokesperson chid CNBC Saturday. “What we encountered instead was a lack of due process as the Administration paid no attention to facts and tried to place itself into negotiations between private businesses.”
“To ensure that the rule of law prevails and that our company and buyers are treated fairly, we have no choice but to challenge the Executive Order through the judicial system,” the spokesperson said.
Reuters at the start reported the news.
TikTok is working to ensure its employees continue to get paid even if the app is banned in the U.S., according to a person everyday with the matter. The app is popular among teenagers and is known for sharing videos of dances and comedy routines in 60-second nips, many of which go viral.
U.S. officials are concerned that information on TikTok users could be passed on to China’s communist supervision, and the Trump administration is stepping up efforts to remove Chinese apps from U.S. online networks on national security informs.
The Chinese company Tencent, which owns the messaging app WeChat, was also hit with an executive order banning U.S. deals.
In the U.S., TikTok has expanded to more than 100 million monthly users. The app has about 800 million active buyers worldwide and has been downloaded more than 2 billion times.
Congress voted in July to ban federal employees from downloading TikTok on government-issued phones due to nationwide security concerns.