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The Chinese-owned company said it would cut off its services unless the U.S. assures Apple, Google and other companies that they would not be punished for hosting and distributing TikTok.
The incoming Trump administration and the Biden administration went back and forth on Saturday over the status of TikTok and whether a ban of the service would take place, after the video app said that it would be forced to “go dark” on Sunday when a federal law takes effect.
President-elect Donald J. Trump told NBC News that he would “most likely” find a way to give the company a 90-day extension once he takes office on Monday “because it’s appropriate.”
Earlier on Saturday, the White House press secretary called TikTok’s claim it would go dark “a stunt.” TikTok, in a statement late Friday, had called on the Biden administration to assure Apple, Google and other technology companies that they would not be punished for delivering TikTok’s services in the United States.
“We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.
Despite the back and forth, TikTok’s fate was still unclear.
The company’s statement was its latest attempt to pressure the administration to grant it a reprieve from a law, upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, that would effectively ban its service starting Sunday.
The law says that app stores and major cloud computing providers cannot deliver TikTok to U.S. consumers unless the company is sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to a non-Chinese owner. Lawmakers introduced the measure last year over fears that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a threat to national security.
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