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Our story so far:

Politico reporter Christine Miu wrote, "According to the law, Trump would need to certify to Congress that there is a path to divestiture, 'significant progress' toward it, and the 'relevant binding legal agreements' are in place. None of those conditions appear to be in place yet, as ByteDance has resisted a sale."

You mean a tweet from a private citizen isn’t the same thing as a Supreme Court decision?

TikTok went back online in the U.S. shortly after Trump's proposal, posting, "In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive. It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States." 

According to the report, there are major risks involved in just taking Trump's word for it. 

"Likewise, it’s questionable whether the other companies can legally rely on verbal promises from the president to protect them from potentially bankruptcy-inducing fines, if they help bring TikTok back. App stores and service providers face a daily $5,000 fine for every user who can still access TikTok, and those penalties easily add up to billions of dollars," Politico is reporting.

If I’m the guy responsible at Apple (or Google), I don’t think I take Trump’s tweet as the rule of law. If I was advising Apple or Google, I wouldn’t tell them they could. If I’m a service provider, I’d keep TikTok dark for now, thank you very much. “But Private Citizen Trump tweeted about it!” is not the legal defense you might think it is.

Even Turley thinks so:

President Trump's statements indicate that he may issue a 90-day extension for TikTok after he is sworn in on January 20th. However, there is a possible problem with such a plan given the language of the Act...

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 19, 2025

...Moreover, even with a 90-day period, that is not a lot of runway for a corporate sale or a legislative fix. Any way this goes, the status of the company will exist in a weird Zombie statutory state of being among the living dead.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 19, 2025

Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs. Think about… https://t.co/XamZ1qAk2K

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 19, 2025

That seems to answer my question about who can enforce this law....

So TikTok is "back."  But do IP's continue to carry it, and app stores continue to provide it?  Maybe Trump can straighten that out with a tweet.

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