U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has called upon the Supreme Court to suspend the enforcement of legislation that would prohibit the widely-used social media platform TikTok or compel its divestiture.
Trump indicated that he would have the opportunity to seek a political solution to this matter following his inauguration.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in this case on January 10.
The legislation requires that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divest the platform to a U.S. entity or face a prohibition on its operations.
In April, the U.S. Congress passed a measure to prohibit the application unless ByteDance completes the sale by January 19.
TikTok, which claims over 170 million users in the United States, along with its parent company, has sought judicial intervention to invalidate the law.
However, should the court not issue a ruling in their favor and no divestiture takes place, the application risks an effective ban in the United States on January 19, just one day prior to Trump assuming office.
Trump’s endorsement of TikTok represents a significant shift from 2020 when he aimed to restrict the application in the U.S. and mandated its sale to American firms because of its Chinese ownership.
This also underscores TikTok’s substantial efforts to cultivate relationships with Trump and his associates during the presidential election campaign.
