In a legal brief filed to the Supreme Court on Friday, president-elect Donald Trump asked that the nation's highest court pause a law that would ban TikTok in the US from January 19.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government – concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the filing read.
Those concerns revolve around ByteDance, a China-based company that owns TikTok, and whether or not data from US consumers is at risk of being compromised in a manner that poses a threat to national security.
TikTok has repeatedly denied accusations that US consumer data is at risk, but that did not appease Congress, which passed legislation that would force ByteDance to divest its interests in TikTok by January 19, or risk the app being banned in the US.
During his first term in the White House, Mr Trump expressed concerns about national security with regard to TikTok, but during his campaign this year, he joined the platform and expressed an interest in saving it.
In recent remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Mr Trump said he had a “soft spot” for TikTok, in part because he said it helped him win more support during the campaign from a younger demographic.
TikTok's various legal challenges to the law that threatens its existence in the US have been met with failure, yet the company was able to claim a small win when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the company's argument that questions the constitutionality of the law.
According to the Supreme Court filing, TikTok and the US Justice Department were required to electronically file their briefs by Friday, and an oral hearing is scheduled to take place on January 10, a little more than one week before the January 19 deadline that could lead to the ban on the social media platform in the US.
In the meantime, lawmakers have sent letters to Apple, Amazon and Google asking the companies to be prepared to remove TikTok from their respective app stores.
