President Trump has signed an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day extension to comply with a law that requires a sale or ban of the platform.
He says during that time, the US will not enforce the law passed by Congress last year and signed by former President Joe Biden.
The order was among a slew of directives Trump signed on Monday evening.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, he said: “I tell you what. Every rich person has called me about TikTok.”
When asked by a reporter why he’s had a change of heart since trying to ban TikTok in 2020, Trump responded: “Because I got to use it.”
He floated the possibility of a joint venture running the company, saying he was seeking a 50-50 partnership between “the United States” and its Chinese owner ByteDance. But he did not give any further details on how that might work.
Trump also said he may impose new trade tariffs on China if a deal for the platform is not struck.
If Beijing rejected a deal “it would be somewhat of a hostile act”, he said.
Chinese officials have previously rejected calls for a sale, describing US arguments last March as “sheer robbers’ logic”.
However, on Tuesday the spokesperson for the foreign ministry appeared to soften that stance.
“When it comes to actions such as the operation and acquisition of businesses, we believe they should be independently decided by companies,” Guo Jiakun said.
“If it involves Chinese companies, China’s laws and regulations should be observed,” he added.
On Saturday evening, the Chinese-owned app stopped working for American users, as a law banning it on national security grounds was set to come into effect.
It resumed services to its 170 million users in the US after Trump said he would issue an executive order to give the app a reprieve when he took office.
But on Monday it was still not available to download from the Apple and Google app stores.
The Biden administration had argued that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.
Opponents of a ban have cited freedom of speech as a reason for keeping the platform open.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, previously ignored a law requiring it to sell its US operations to avoid a ban.
The law was upheld by Supreme Court on Friday and went into effect on Sunday, but the Biden White House said it would leave implementing the law to the incoming administration given the timing.
Trump had backed a ban of the platform during his first term in office.
The newly signed executive order places him at odds with many members of Congress from his own party.
On Sunday in a post on X, Republican Senator Tom Cotton said any company that “hosts, distributes, services or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok” could face hundreds of billions of dollars in fines.
Cotton said liability could stem not just from the Department of Justice, “but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs [attorneys general]. Think about it”.
TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew attended Trump’s inauguration on Monday along with other bosses of big technology firms, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
Earlier on Monday, YouTube star MrBeast posted a TikTok video of him apparently from a private jet on his way to make an official offer to buy the short video platform.
The post gave no other details about the offer, only that it would be “crazy”.
Other companies, billionaires and celebrities have expressed interest in buying TikTok, including former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and an investor from the TV show Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary.
Additional reporting by Michelle Fleury
