The chair and leading Democrat on a U.S. House committee focused on China dropped a serious message for the CEOs of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Apple on Friday: they better be ready to pull TikTok from their U.S. app stores by January 19.
Just last week, a federal appeals court backed a law that requires ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company based in China, to either sell the app in the U.S. or face a ban. Representative John Moolenaar, a Republican who chairs the committee, along with the committee’s top Democrat, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, both pressed TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, to make the sale happen.
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“Congress has acted decisively to defend the national security of the United States and protect TikTok’s American users from the Chinese Communist Party. We urge TikTok to immediately execute a qualified divestiture,” the lawmakers wrote.
As of now, Apple, Alphabet, and TikTok haven’t responded publicly. Meanwhile, ByteDance and TikTok are making an emergency move to temporarily block the law while it’s reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Department of Justice mentioned on Wednesday that if the ban goes into effect on January 19, it wouldn’t outright stop current users from using TikTok, but they acknowledged that the limitations on support would ultimately make the app unworkable.
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ByteDance and TikTok pointed out that President-elect Donald Trump has promised to fight against a TikTok ban. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Josh Hawley expressed his hope that ByteDance will sell TikTok, stating that the law leaves no room for negotiation.
“The statute is what the statute is,” Hawley said. “The main issue is it’s subject to Chinese oversight, Beijing oversight – that’s the problem.”
