Last updated: September 22, 2025
Ban effective date: January 19, 2025 (270 days after April 24, 2024).
TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, has drawn sustained scrutiny from U.S. policymakers over concerns that its data collection practices and content recommendation algorithms could be influenced by the Chinese government. Given China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which compels companies to cooperate with state intelligence work, officials worry that TikTok could be used for covert data harvesting or algorithmic manipulation. These national security concerns drove bipartisan support for legislative action, culminating in PAFACA.
On April 24, 2024, Congress passed PAFACA, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (H.R. 7521), mandating ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations within 270 days or face a nationwide ban.
President Biden signed the legislation into law shortly after its passage. After returning to office, President Trump issued executive orders extending the divestment deadline:
In September 2025, public reporting also outlined prospective deal elements, including American representation on TikTok’s U.S. board and third-party operational controls over key systems (e.g., Oracle securing the recommendation algorithm).
As of today, no final divestment agreement has been publicly finalized, and TikTok remains operational under this extended timeline.
Some legal scholars argue that these extensions violate the explicit terms of PAFACA. The law does not grant the president open-ended authority to delay enforcement without meeting specific conditions. By issuing extensions without the mandated certifications, the executive orders appear to contravene the statute.
Furthermore, in January 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of PAFACA, reinforcing Congress’s authority to impose divestment deadlines and emphasizing the importance of statutory compliance.
Despite these concerns, there has been little legal opposition to Trump’s extensions, likely due to TikTok’s broad popularity among U.S. users and the legal difficulty of establishing standing to challenge the executive orders. The absence of sustained legal pushback may also reflect a quieter, unresolved debate over the nature and appropriate response to the national security risks at hand.