TikTok: The Countdown To A U.S. Owned App
For nearly the entirety of the 2020’s, the social media app TikTok has been a pawn in the waning relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. American legislators have noted privacy concerns in regards to TikTok since as early as 2019.[1] After several threats of a shutdown and a very brief actual shutdown, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance has agreed to sell the majority of their shares to keep TikTok running in the United States.[2] Advocacy from the Biden and Trump administrations for TikTok’s nationwide shutdown has also raised questions about First Amendment protections.[3] In light of free speech and privacy violations from an app that began as teenagers lip syncing, one might wonder: How did we get here?
Road to TikTok
Musical.ly was founded in 2014 by Louis Zhang and Alex Zhu.[4] Zhu later became TikTok’s senior vice president, and eventually Vice President of Product and Strategy for TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance.[5] Only one year later, Musical.ly became the top app on the iTunes App Store.[6] At the time, Greylock investor Josh Elman noted, or foreshadowed, “It’s the first company to be headquartered in China, designed in China, but popular in the US.”[7]
In 2017, Musical.ly was sold to the multibillion-dollar Chinese company, ByteDance, for a rumored $1 billion.[8] ByteDance was founded only five years earlier, boasting the “ability to offer targeted advertising by breaking down user segments by age, location, and interest.”[9] ByteDance had previously owned a short form video app—Douyin, expanded internationally as “TikTok” in 2016.[10] By 2018, ByteDance merged Musical.ly and TikTok into just TikTok.[11] Following the merger, TikTok became based in Los Angeles and opened offices internationally.[12] Soon, TikTok passed 6 million users in the United States, earning the top spot in the App Store.[13]
While we were locked in our homes, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on, TikTok’s exponential growth continued.[14] In early 2020, TikTok received more downloads than had ever previously occurred for an app in a single fiscal quarter.[15] By 2021, TikTok claimed to have passed into 1 billion monthly users.[16]
Regulating TikTok Under Trump’s First Term
In 2019, TikTok reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission—$5.7 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Act, or COPPA.[17] COPPA legislation provides requirements for websites directed to users under 13 years old.[18] According to the Commission’s complaint, the app did not require parental consent before collecting user’s names, emails, and other personal information, despite knowing many of its users were below the age of 13.[19] As part of the settlement, TikTok was forced to comply with COPPA, which included taking down all videos made by users under 13 years old.[20]
By 2019, government officials began voicing privacy and national security concerns stemming from TikTok.[21] First, Senators Charles Schumer and Tom Cotton wrote to the Acting Director of National Intelligence, sharing concerns about TikTok’s data collection, and potential content censorship.[22] The senators claimed ByteDance had to follow Chinese law, including cooperating “with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.”[23] They concluded by requesting an assessment of TikTok for national security risks.[24] The very next day, TikTok denied the allegations in a statement, claiming all United States user data was stored within the United States, with a backup redundancy in Singapore.[25] The statement further claimed none of TikTok’s data centers were in China, nor was the data subject to Chinese law.[26]
In the months following the letter from Senators Schumer and Cotton, suspicion against TikTok grew. In response to their letter, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States opened an investigation against TikTok.[27] That December, the United States Army and Navy banned TikTok usage on government owned phones, with an Army spokeswoman saying TikTok is a cyber threat.[28] In addition, the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, banned employees from using TikTok on the agency’s behalf.[29] Following these bans, Senator Josh Hawley introduced the No TikTok on Government Devices Act.[30] As the name suggests, Hawley sought to ban TikTok “or any entity owned by ByteDance on any device issued by the United States or a government corporation.”[31] The No TikTok on Government Devices Act later passed as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act during Joe Biden’s presidency.[32]
President Trump became a player in the TikTok debacle beginning with his failed rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In June, @TeamTrump advertised free tickets to Trump’s rally on Twitter.[33] Alongside Twitter users, several TikTok videos went viral encouraging people to register for the rally to inflate attendance expectations, only to not show up and leave the venue sparsely populated.[34] While the Chairman of Trump’s 2020 campaign claimed the rally received over 500 thousand ticket requests, a spokesman for the Tulsa Fire Department claimed the fire marshal counted only 6.2 thousand scanned tickets.[35] An exchange between Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seemed to legitimize the idea that TikToks played a role in the rally’s low turnout.[36]
Following the rally, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo suggested the government was considering a ban on TikTok in the United States.[37] At the same time, TikTok claimed they were willing to allow American regulators and privacy experts to examine TikTok’s software code, as a showing of good faith and its commitment to following United States laws.[38] Still, Trump announced his intention to ban TikTok from the United States, either through executive orders or under his emergency economic powers.[39] The International Economic Emergency Powers Act allows the President to ban communication tools when they are determined to be national security threats.[40]
Within the month, Trump issued an executive order addressing the perceived threat from TikTok and, by extension, ByteDance.[41] The executive order imposed a ban on all transactions with ByteDance, beginning 45 days after the executive order was published.[42] As they had done following the letter from Senators Schumer and Cotton, TikTok responded promptly, once again, affirming the company’s commitment to adhering to United States laws, asserting the lack of due process they had been given by the United States government, and calling into question First Amendment rights in the event of TikTok being banned in the United States.[43]
Only a week later, the Trump administration published another executive order, demanding that ByteDance sell their United States assets within 90 days.[44] In response, TikTok sued the United States government for lack of due process.[45] For the first time in years, TikTok saw a shred of luck; a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the executive order banning the app.[46] Trump’s first presidency concluded with a U.S. district judge fully blocking Trump’s attempted TikTok ban, finding the ban an invalid use of emergency economic powers.[47]
Regulating TikTok Under Biden
Joe Biden’s attitude toward TikTok began the same way his presidency did, on a decent, but all too brief note. At the beginning of his term, Biden signed his own executive order, reversing the potential bans on TikTok while directing the Commerce Secretary to investigate the company.[48] That same summer, TikTok and the United States government mutually dropped their lawsuits against one another.[49]
Things took a turn for the worst, however, when leaked audio recordings of TikTok meetings indicated ByteDance employees previously accessed private data from U.S. based users.[50] Again, TikTok swiftly released a statement explaining the company’s methods of data storage, and further claimed all user traffic would be directed to the Oracle cloud.[51] These promises and explanations were not enough for the United States Government and, in March of 2023, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.[52] A year later, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was introduced to the House, passed all the way through Congress, and signed into law by Joe Biden.[53] The legislation gave ByteDance until January 19, 2025 to sell TikTok, otherwise the app would be banned in the United States.[54]
Once again, TikTok and ByteDance sued the United States government—this time on First Amendment grounds—which was escalated to the United States Supreme Court, who upheld the Act.[55] Just as the lights went out on the Biden presidency, so too did the lights on TikTok in the United States.[56]
Regulating TikTok Under Trump’s Second Term
Unlike Biden , TikTok came back online less than 24 hours after its loss.[57] One of Trump’s first executive orders during his second term delayed TikTok’s shut down for an extra 75 days.[58] 75 days later, Trump allowed ByteDance 75 additional days to sell.[59] Less than 75 days after that, Trump issued yet another executive order, delaying enforcement of the TikTok ban to September 17, 2025.[60] Finally, after years of back and forth, Trump signed another executive order, confirming that ByteDance sold the majority of their shares for TikTok, claiming ByteDance would own less than 20% of the app after the sale.[61] In his latest TikTok-related executive order, Trump, once again, extended enforcement of the shutdown to December 16, allowing TikTok’s sale to conclude.[62]
As the country reels from the longest government shut down in United States history, how reassuring to know the sitting president cares about the real issues: a social media app.[63]
[1] Sarah Min, Musical.ly took kids’ information without parental approval, CBS News (Feb. 28, 2019, 5:30 PM), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/musical-ly-now-tik-tok-took-kids-information-without-parental-approval-fcc-says/.
[2] Angela Yang & Savannah Sellers, Trump signs executive order facilitating TikTok deal, NBC News (Sept. 25, 2025, 1:42 PM), https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-signs-executive-order-tiktok-deal-know-rcna233518.
[3] David Shepardson, TikTok, ByteDance sue to block US law seeking sale or ban of app, Reuters (May 7, 2024, 9:59 PM), https://archive.ph/lpyaP.
[4] Biz Carson, How a failed education startup turned into Musical.ly, the most popular app you’ve probably never heard of, Bus. Insider Sing. (May 28, 2016) https://web.archive.org/web/20190111121542/https:/www.businessinsider.my/what-is-musically-2016-5/.
[5] Sam Shead, TikTok’s former CEO is now making investments on behalf of parent company ByteDance, CNBC (July 21, 2020, 9:20 AM) https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/21/alex-zhu-tiktok-bytedance.html.
[6] Angela Yang & Savannah Sellers, Trump signs executive order facilitating TikTok deal, NBC News (Sept. 25, 2025, 1:42 PM), https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-signs-executive-order-tiktok-deal-know-rcna233518.
[7]Id.
[8] Liza Lin & Rolfe Winkler, Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1 Billion, The Wall Street J. (Nov. 9, 2017, 8:46 PM), https://archive.ph/rEw5Q.
[9]Id.
[10] Kenrick Davis, The App That Launched a Thousand Memes, Sixth Tone (Feb 20, 2018), https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001728
[11] Todd Spangler, Musical.ly Is Going Away: Users to Be Shifted to Bytedance’s TikTok Video App, Variety, (Aug. 2, 2018 3:32 AM) https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/musically-shutdown-tiktok-bytedance-1202893205/.
[12]Id.
[13] Julia Alexander, TikTok surges past 6M downloads in the US as celebrities join the app, The Verge, (Nov. 15, 2018, 2:30 PM) https://archive.ph/6oheD.
[14] Craig Chapple, TikTok Crosses 2 Billion Downloads After Best Quarter For Any App Ever, Sensor Tower, (April 2020) https://sensortower.com/blog/tiktok-downloads-2-billion.
[15]Id.
[16] Kim Lyons, TikTok says it has passed 1 billion users, The Verge, (Sept. 21, 2021, 9:21 AM) https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/27/22696281/tiktok-1-billion-users.
[17] Sarah Min, Musical.ly took kids’ information without parental approval, CBS News (Feb. 28, 2019, 5:30 PM), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/musical-ly-now-tik-tok-took-kids-information-without-parental-approval-fcc-says/.
[18] Fed. Trade Comm’n , Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (“COPPA”), (Last Visited Oct. 30, 2025), https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-312.
[19] Sarah Min, Musical.ly took kids’ information without parental approval, CBS News (Feb. 28, 2019, 5:30 PM), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/musical-ly-now-tik-tok-took-kids-information-without-parental-approval-fcc-says/.
[20] Sarah Min, Musical.ly took kids’ information without parental approval, CBS News (Feb. 28, 2019, 5:30 PM), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/musical-ly-now-tik-tok-took-kids-information-without-parental-approval-fcc-says/.
[21] Letter from Charles Schumer & Tom Cotton, Senators, to Joseph Maguire, Acting Director of National Intelligence. (Oct. 23, 2019) (https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/10232019%20TikTok%20Letter%20-%20FINAL%20PDF.pdf)
[22]Id.
[23]Id.
[24]Id.
[25]Statement on TikTok’s content moderation and data security practices, TikTok, (Oct. 24, 2019) https://newsroom.tiktok.com/statement-on-tiktoks-content-moderation-and-data-security-practices?lang=en.
[26]Id.
[27] Jack Nicas, Mike Isaac, & Ana Swanson, TikTok Said to Be Under National Security Review, The N. Y. Times, (Nov. 1, 2019) https://archive.ph/Iiycz#selection-587.4-587.56.
[28] Justine Calma, US Army bans soldiers from using TikTok, The Verge, (Dec. 31, 2019, 6:30 PM) https://archive.ph/bO4qO.
[29]TSA halts employees from using TikTok for social media posts, CBS News, (Feb. 24, 2020, 7:17 AM) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tsa-halts-employees-from-using-tiktok-for-social-media-posts/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=82944531.
[30] Justin Sherman, Unpacking TikTok, Mobile Apps and National Security Risks, Lawfare, (April 2, 2020, 10:06 AM) https://archive.ph/DMxzg.
[31]Id.
[32]Lauren Feiner, TikTok banned on government devices under spending bill passed by Congress, CNBC, (Dec. 23, 2022, 3:08 PM) https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/23/congress-passes-spending-bill-with-tiktok-ban-on-government-devices.html.
[33] Team Trump (@TeamTrump), Twitter (Jun 11, 2020, 10:18 PM), https://archive.ph/Mba5h.
[34] Taylor Lorenz, Kellen Browning & Sheera Frenkel, TikTok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sank Trump Rally, The N. Y. Times, (June 21, 2020) https://archive.ph/SsGxu.
[35]Id.
[36] Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC), Twitter (June 21, 2020, 12:27 AM), https://archive.ph/AV2hJ.
[37]Timothy Bella, Pompeo says the U.S. is ‘certainly looking at’ banning TikTok and other Chinese apps, The Wash. Post, (July 7, 2020, 8:23 AM) https://archive.ph/0GQy5.
[38] Tony Romm, TikTok says it will let U.S. skeptics see its code to defray privacy concerns, The Wash. Post, (July 29, 2020, 1:32 PM) https://archive.ph/A2vPi.
[39] Ellen Nakashima, Rachel Lerman, & Jeanne Whalen, Trump says he plans to bar TikTok from operating in the U.S., The Wash. Post, (Aug. 1, 2020, 2:47 AM) https://archive.ph/lNHzL.
[40] Id.
[41] Exec. Order No. 13942, (Aug. 6, 2020) https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/?utm_source=link.
[42] Adi Robertson, The big legal questions behind Trump’s TikTok and WeChat bans, The Verge, (Aug. 10, 2020, 1:00 PM) https://archive.ph/Og0zc.
[43]Statement on the Administration’s Executive Order, TikTok, (Aug. 7, 2020) https://newsroom.tiktok.com/tiktok-responds?lang=en.
[44] Bobby Allyn, Trump: TikTok Must Be Sold In 90 Days, Cites ‘Credible Evidence’ Of Security Threat, NPR, (Aug. 14, 2020, 10:49 PM) https://www.npr.org/2020/08/14/902764797/trump-tiktok-must-be-sold-in-90-days-cites-credible-evidence-of-security-threat.
[45] Mike Isaac & Ana Swanson, TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Trump Ban, The N. Y. Times, (Aug. 24, 2020, 2:31 PM) https://archive.ph/KpWP4.
[46] Mike Isaac & David McCabe, TikTok Wins Reprieve from U.S. Ban, The N. Y. Times, (Sept. 27, 2020) https://archive.ph/rmjIk.
[47] Bobby Allyn, U.S. Judge Halts Trump’s TikTok Ban, The 2nd Court To Fully Block the Action, NPR, (Dec 7, 2020, 8:36 PM) https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/944039053/u-s-judge-halts-trumps-tiktok-ban-the-2nd-court-to-fully-block-the-action?t=1609087334425.
[48] Makena Kelly, Biden revokes and replaces Trump orders banning TikTok and WeChat, The Verge, (Jun. 9, 2021, 10:00 AM) https://archive.ph/nsQnG.
[49] Brian Fung, TikTok, Biden administration agree to drop litigation over Trump-era app store ban, CNN Bus., (July 22, 2021, 9:41 AM) https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/tech/tiktok-trump-ban-dismissed/index.html.
[50] Emily Baker-White, Leaked Audio From 80 Internal TikTok Meetings Shows That US User Data Has Been Repeatedly Accessed From China, BuzzFeed News, (June 17, 2022, 9:31 AM) https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access.
[51] Albert Calamug, Delivering on our US date governance, TikTok, (June 17, 2022) https://newsroom.tiktok.com/delivering-on-our-us-data-governance?lang=en.
[52] Dara Kerr, Lawmakers grilled TikTok CEO Chew for 5 hours in a high-stakes hearing about the app, NPR, (March 23, 2023, 5:34 PM) https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165579717/tiktok-congress-hearing-shou-zi-chew-project-texas.
[53]Tracker Detail: Protecting Americans form Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, Tech Pol’y, https://www.techpolicy.press/tracker/protecting-americans-from-foreign-adversary-controlled-applications-act-hr-7521/.
[54] David Shepardson, TikTok, ByteDance sue to block US law seeking sale or ban of app, Reuters, (May 7, 2024, 9:59 PM) https://archive.ph/lpyaP.
[55] Mark Sherman, TikTok says it will ‘go dark’ unless it gets clarity from Biden following Supreme Court Ruling, Associated Press, (Jan 18, 2025, 1:48 PM) https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-tiktok-china-security-speech-166f7c794ee587d3385190f893e52777.
[56] Aaron Pellish & Brian Stelter, TikTok shuts down in the United States hours ahead of a ban, CNN Bus., (Jan 19, 2025, 7:12 AM) https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/18/business/trump-tiktok-ban/index.html.
[57] Antonio Pequeno IV & Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, TikTok Ban Timeline: TikTok Returns to U.S. App Stores – For Now, Forbes, (Feb. 14, 2025, 2:39 PM) https://archive.ph/12Dqw.
[58]Id.
[59] Jonathan Vanian, Trump extends TikTok deadline for the second time, CNBC, (April 4, 2025, 1:40 PM) https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/trumps-extends-tiktok-second-time.html.
[60] Exec. Order 14310, (June 19, 2025) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/further-extending-the-tiktok-enforcement-delay/.
[61] Angela Yang & Savannah Sellers, Trump signs executive order facilitating TikTok deal, NBC News (Sept. 25, 2025, 1:42 PM) https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-signs-executive-order-tiktok-deal-know-rcna233518.
[62] The Associated Press, Trump extends TikTok shutdown deadline for fourth time after framework deal with China is reached, NBC News, (Sept. 16, 2025, 1:01 PM) https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-extends-tiktok-shutdown-deadline-reaching-framework-deal-china-rcna231746.
[63] Rachel Treisman, The government shutdown is now the longest in U.S. history. See how it compare, NPR, (Nov 5, 2025, 5:00 AM) https://www.npr.org/2025/11/05/nx-s1-5598315/government-shutdown-longest-history