Tiktok Ban Falls Hard On Apple And Google

Apple, Google and Oracle — a trio of the world’s biggest tech firms that are cultivating ties to the incoming Republican government in Washington — are facing their own set of difficult questions after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law forcing TikTok to be sold from Beijing-based ByteDance or banned in the U.S.

When the law’s deadline kicks in Sunday — barring any last-minute sale or surprise move from the Biden administration — it doesn’t technically “ban” the app, or turn its feed off. Instead, the law punishes any companies that distribute, maintain or update TikTok.

That means Apple and Google must take it off their app stores or be slapped with enormous fines. Oracle, which provides cloud services and was part of a scheme to fend off anxiety in Washington over the Chinese Communist Party’s potential to control TikTok by onshoring its U.S. user data, would also be fined if it continued to provide services.

Jeffrey Fisher, a lawyer who represented a group of creators at the Supreme Court, pointed to the stakes for a host of affluent companies when he and TikTok attempted to pressure President Joe Biden Friday into promising they would not be punished.

“[It] would cause substantial and avoidable disruption to the third-party providers that may be subject to severe penalties if they continue to provide TikTok to its millions of users,” he told the outgoing president in a letter shared with POLITICO. “There is no compelling need to risk that result.”

The Biden White House has repeatedly indicated he won’t enforce the law on his last day in office, and Donald Trump — who will be sworn in on Monday — has vowed to save TikTok by working out a political deal and may not enforce it either.

President-elect Donald Trump was still deliberating Saturday but said that he'd "most likely" give TikTok a three-month lifeline from a U.S. ban, possibly as soon as his first day in office. “I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate,” Trump told NBC News’ Kristen Welker in a phone interview. “If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”

However, it remains to be seen if those promises will be enough for companies to expose themselves to major financial liability by keeping the app up and running. The extension is a one-time option that the law grants the president, though it requires certification to Congress of "significant progress" toward divestiture, complete with the "relevant binding legal agreements" — none of which appears to be true, as ByteDance has refused to sell.

App stores and service providers face a daily $5,000 fine for every user who can still access TikTok, and those penalties easily add up to billions of dollars.

Apple, Google and Oracle have not publicly shared if they will comply with the law or flout it on Jan. 19. All three did not respond to questions from POLITICO regarding their plans.

Whether Google and Apple would be protected in a scenario where the president vows to spare them — but then later reneges — was debated at the Supreme Court last week. The justices questioned whether a pledge to not enforce the law is legally reliable.

“It's purely a business decision, not a legal decision,” University of Pennsylvania law professor Gus Hurwitz told POLITICO. “Trump's message to them is going to be: ‘Keep serving Tiktok, keep this app available, keep it running. Don't worry, I'm not going to mess with you.’”

But there’s also a political dimension to it. Hurwitz warned many of the companies “have such an adversarial relationship with the [Trump] administration that it would be really, truly hard to trust the administration, even when you're trying to cozy up to it.”

The legal ambiguity is what motivated TikTok to demand an explicit guarantee from Biden Friday night for the other companies involved in its fate. The company issued a statement saying the Biden White House and Justice Department have “failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Americans,” leaving it no choice but to “go dark” on Jan. 19.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused TikTok of staging a "stunt." She said in a statement Saturday that the administration sees "no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday."

The question of whether to service TikTok during a ban comes down to companies’ appetite for risk, and there’s reason to think Oracle may be more willing to trust the Trump administration.

The company provides cloud infrastructure for TikTok and has been described as Trump’s favorite tech company. Its top brass bankrolled his reelection bid, and reportedly helped the Heritage Foundation vet thousands of party loyalists to carry out the Project 2025 agenda.

Oracle also won a billion-dollar contract in 2020 to host all of the app’s U.S. user data via an initiative called “Project Texas.” Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who has a long history of openly supporting Trump, got that lucrative partnership across the finish line.

TikTok agreed to that plan to address the U.S. government’s national security concerns, only to be blindsided when lawmakers declared it was not good enough and followed through with the law.

More than a few members of Congress say they will be watching the app stores closely.

Sen. Mike Rounds (S.D.) said Thursday that TikTok should receive “no more time.” The leaders of the House Select Committee on China preemptively sent Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook, compelling them to “take the necessary steps” to ensure their companies are fully in compliance with the law by Jan. 19.

After the ruling Friday, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told reporters that U.S. app store providers like Google and Apple “need to comply with the law” and its requirement that they immediately revoke access to TikTok.

Scott also left little wiggle room for Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, who refused to commit to enforcing the ban during her confirmation hearing.

When asked about her reluctance, he said “I expect the laws to be enforced.”