US lawmakers urge Biden to extend TikTok January 19 ban deadline

Two Democratic lawmakers on Monday, January 13, urged Congress and President Joe Biden to extend a January 19 deadline for China-based ByteDance to sell the US assets of TikTok or face a US ban.

The Supreme Court held arguments Friday on Tiktok and ByteDance’s challenge to the law. A lawyer for the companies, Noel Francisco, said it would be impossible to complete a sale by next week’s deadline.

He said if banned, the the short video app used by 170 million Americans would quickly go dark and “essentially the platform shuts down.”

Biden could extend the deadline by 90 days if he certifies ByteDance is making substantial progress toward a divestiture but it is unlikely ByteDance could meet that standard.

Senator Edward Markey said he planned to introduce legislation to delay the deadline by which ByteDance must sell TikTok or face a ban by an additional 270 days.

“A ban would dismantle a one-of-a-kind informational and cultural ecosystem, silencing millions in the process,” Markey said Monday.

“A TikTok ban would impose serious consequences on millions of Americans who depend on the app for social connections and their economic livelihood. We cannot allow that to happen.”

President-elect Donald Trump has asked the court to delay implementation of the law, arguing he should have time after taking office on Jan. 20 to pursue a “political resolution” to the issue.

Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, on Monday urged Biden and Trump “to put a pause on this ban so 170 million Americans don’t lose their free speech. Millions of Americans’ livelihood will be ended if this ban takes place.”

If the court does not block the law by Sunday, new downloads of TikTok on Apple or Google app stores would be banned but existing users could continue to access the app for some period. Services would degrade and eventually stop working as companies will be barred from providing support.

The White House did not immediately comment.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News reported Chinese officials are in preliminary talks regarding a possible option to sell TikTok’s US operations to Elon Musk. Sources tell Bloomberg News that Beijing officials would much prefer TikTok remain under ByteDance’s control, but were mulling contingencies as part of a discussion on how to work with the incoming Trump administration.

The report’s sources mentioned that under one scenario discussed by the Chinese government, Musk’s could take control of TikTok’s US operations and run the businesses together — a potential boon for X in attracting users and advertisers while also providing Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence company with data generated from TikTok use.

Reuters added that a Bytedance spokesperson responded to the Bloomberg News report, saying, “We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction.” – with reports from Reuters/Rappler.com