Trump asks Supreme Court to pause TikTok ban deadline

President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on December 27, 2024, to pause the deadline under a federal law that could effectively shut down TikTok in the United States. His filing sought time for the incoming administration to pursue negotiations rather than an immediate ruling resolving the constitutional dispute.

The request concerned a January 19, 2025, deadline for TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, to divest the platform. That date fell one day before Trump’s scheduled inauguration, placing the potential restrictions at the center of the presidential transition.

Trump submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting neither party in the case. The filing did not ask the justices to declare the law constitutional or unconstitutional, instead arguing that a delay could allow a negotiated settlement addressing both national security and freedom of expression.

The law, signed in April 2024, targets the services that enable TikTok to operate and reach American users. Without a qualifying divestiture, its restrictions would prohibit app stores and internet hosting providers from distributing, maintaining or updating the application, making the dispute broader than a question of whether users could download it.

TikTok and ByteDance were challenging the measure on First Amendment grounds after a federal appeals court upheld it on December 6. In their December 27 Supreme Court filing, the companies argued that the lower court had wrongly accepted the government’s assessment of risks arising from potential Chinese control over the platform.

The Justice Department defended the law as a national security measure rather than a restriction on protected expression. After the appeals court ruling, the department said the legislation was intended to prevent Chinese government access to sensitive American information and covert manipulation of content delivered to U.S. audiences.

Those competing positions put the platform’s ownership and its role as a communications channel at the heart of the case. The government maintained that separating TikTok from ByteDance would address security risks, while the company’s challenge emphasized the consequences of losing access to a widely used outlet for speech.

A pause would not itself overturn the legislation or establish that any proposed transaction satisfied it. The law separately permits a limited presidential extension when specified conditions are met, including evidence of progress toward a qualifying divestiture and binding agreements enabling its completion.

The Supreme Court had already agreed to hear the consolidated challenges on an accelerated schedule. Its December 18 order directed the parties to address whether the law, as applied to the challengers, violated the First Amendment, and deferred consideration of their requests for interim relief until oral argument.

Under that schedule, reply briefs were due January 3, with two hours of oral argument set for January 10. The immediate question was whether the justices would allow the deadline to remain in place while examining the constitutional challenge or provide additional time before restrictions could take effect.