Feb. 14 (UPI) — Chinese-owned social media app TikTok reappeared on Apple and Google’s app stores for U.S. customers four weeks after being removed in line with a bipartisan law banning the video-sharing platform unless it was sold to a non-Chinese buyer.
Neither Apple or Google have commented on their decision to bring TikTok back on Thursday, while TikTok simply said in a post on X that the “latest TikTok app is now available to download on the App Store and Google Play Store.”
The move came hours after President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington that he was hopeful a deal could be done and that China would be on board because it was “to their benefit, too.”
The tech giants pulled the app from their stores hours before the legal ban took effect Jan. 19, but Trump issued an executive order on inauguration day suspending implementation for 75 days and instructing his attorney general-elect to provide written assurances to entities involved in distributing, maintaining or updating TikTok that would face no liability for continuing to do so, backdated to Jan. 19.
The sending out of the letter on Thursday, one of the first acts in the job of Trump’s pick for Attorney General Pam Bondi after she was sworn in Wednesday, was also critical to the app being made available to download again.
However, the law signed by former President Joe Biden in April requiring parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban due to national security concerns around the collection of the personal data of its 170 million U.S. users remains in place.
Trump, who credited his videos on TikTok for giving his presidential campaign a boost among younger voters, has pitched various plans to avoid having to permanently ban the app from using the new U.S. Soveregin Wealth Fund he established last week to take it over to part ownership in a joint venture with ByteDance.
