Donald Trump is planning an executive order to help TikTok stay in service

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President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order on Monday guaranteeing that companies that helped TikTok stay in service would not be held liable for violating a ban passed by Congress.

TikTok The service suspended this weekend ahead of a Sunday deadline that required ByteDance, the app’s Chinese owner, to sell the video app to avoid a ban on app stores allowing downloads.

“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.

“I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions go into effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security,” the president-elect said.

Trump added that his order would ensure that the companies that helped TikTok stay in service would not face “any liability.”

Earlier on Sunday, Mike Waltz, a Florida lawmaker who will become national security adviser when Trump is inaugurated on Monday, told CNN that the president-elect is considering allowing Chinese ownership to continue, but with “firewalls” to ensure that data from the app is “protected above”. land of the United States.”

Trump said in his Social Truth post that he would like the United States to “have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture.”

“By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow us to say (yes) up,” said Trump. “Without the approval of the United States, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars — maybe trillions.”

“My initial thought is a joint venture between the current owner and/or new owners with the United States getting 50% ownership in a joint venture created between the United States and whatever purchase we choose.”

Lawmakers and US security officials believe that the Chinese government could use TikTok to obtain the personal information of Americans that would facilitate espionage. TikTok denies that China has control over the app.

On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the ban, which came into effect on Sunday. On Saturday Trump said he would “probably” extend the deadline to sell TikTok, which has been downloaded by 170 million Americans, by 90 days.

But some Republican lawmakers, including Tom Cotton, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, and Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts, said in a statement that “there was no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’.”

A person involved in drafting the TikTok law said there was no provision in the legislation for an extension once the January 19 deadline had passed.

The law allowed a 90-day extension if certain conditions were met — including evidence of “significant progress” toward a divestiture and “binding agreements” to allow enforcement — but only if they came before the deadline.

In a separate interview with CBS television, Waltz said Trump needed time to evaluate possible offers to save the app.

“What we need between now and Monday is to buy the president some time to evaluate those deals and if it goes dark, it will obviously be extremely problematic,” he said.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, told NBC that he believed that when Trump said “save TikTok” the president-elect was referring to ways “to try to force a real divestment.”

In his first term, Trump issued an executive order to prevent TikTok from operating in the United States, but it was blocked by the courts. His administration also tried to engineer a deal that would ensure China could not access the data. China’s national security law requires Chinese companies to hand over data when the government orders it.

Last year, Trump voiced opposition to congressional divestment or banning legislation, saying it would help Facebook, which has banned him from its platform for two years. Facebook competes with TikTok through its Instagram app.