‘Actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration,’ said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
The White House on Friday said that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on the Chinese-owned TikTok social media platform will ultimately fall under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
Earlier Friday, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration in upholding the ban, just three days before Trump is due to be inaugurated as president. It found that a law ordering TikTok to divest from Chinese-owned entities or face a ban does not violate the Constitution’s First Amendment.
“The Administration, like the rest of the country, has awaited the decision just made by the U.S. Supreme Court on the TikTok matter,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Friday in response to the order. “Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday.”
Responding to the high court’s decision, Trump told CNN on Friday that the decision on whether to keep or ban TikTok is up to him. However, he did not go into details on his plans for the social media app.
“It ultimately goes up to me, so you’re going to see what I’m going to do,” he said.
Trump wrote in a Truth Social post shortly before the court’s decision was issued that TikTok was among the topics in his conversation on Friday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
While Trump has been critical of the ByteDance-owned platform, the president-elect has recently softened his stance. TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, has confirmed he will attend his inauguration, along with the heads of X, Facebook, Amazon, and other tech companies.
Trump has more than 10 million followers on TikTok, and he used the platform during his successful 2024 campaign to reach younger voters who use the platform.
Last April, a bipartisan bill that passed in Congress gave ByteDance 270 days to divest from TikTok or face a ban in the United States. ByteDance has said that it would not sell, although there have been reports indicating that some U.S. investors have been in talks with the company to divest.
