A federal appeals court ruled against TikTok and its Chinese parent company Friday, upholding a law that would require app stores and hosting services to ban the popular short-form video app if ByteDance doesn’t divest.
The decision increased the likelihood that TikTok — which is used by around 170 million Americans each month, according to Reuters — will be banned in the United States on Jan. 19.
But on Monday, TikTok and ByteDance asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for more time to sort out their American future — and more time for President-elect Donald Trump to weigh in.
The D.C. Circuit hasn’t yet responded to this emergency motion, but it’s increasingly clear that TikTok is headed toward one of a few possible outcomes in the U.S.
Here are four ways the ongoing legal battle over TikTok could end.
1. TikTok will be banned in the U.S. on Jan. 19.
If the D.C. Circuit refuses to put its ruling on hold or if the Supreme Court takes up the case and then affirms the D.C. Circuit’s decision, TikTok will more than likely be banned on Jan. 19.
Technically, President Joe Biden could supersede those potential court rulings and grant TikTok and ByteDance an extension, but he’s unlikely to do so, Reuters reported.
Biden has the power to offer a 90-day extension, “but it is not clear whether ByteDance could meet the heavy burden to show it had made significant progress toward a divestiture needed to trigger the extension,” the article said.
2. TikTok will be banned in the U.S. later in 2025.
If Biden does grant the extension — or if the D.C. Circuit or Supreme Court rule that TikTok and ByteDance can have more time — the app could still be banned in the U.S. later in 2025.
Absent a ruling overturning the TikTok ban or a new owner for TikTok in the U.S., the federal law will eventually take effect.
3. Trump will save TikTok.
In their legal filing Monday, TikTok and ByteDance noted that the incoming Trump administration deserves a role in deciding their future.
Putting Friday’s ruling on hold “will give the incoming administration time to determine its position — which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review,” the companies argued, according to Reuters.
Although Trump tried to ban TikTok during his first term in office, he is now opposed to the federal law that would put such a ban in place.
Trump said before the election that he wanted to save TikTok, and his incoming national security adviser said Friday that he still feels that way.
Trump “wants to save TikTok. We absolutely need to allow the American people to have access to that app but we have to protect our data as well,” Mike Waltz told Fox Business Network, per Reuters.
But some legal experts are not confident Trump will have the power to save TikTok, even as president.
“While Trump could simply say his administration won’t enforce a TikTok ban by going after Apple and Google if they keep the app up on their app stores, legal experts predicted to Barron’s there would still be ‘enormous pressure’ on those companies to comply with the ban anyway,” Forbes reported.
4. TikTok will save itself.
If ByteDance is able to find an acceptable new owner for TikTok in the U.S., the federal ban will become moot.
Billionaire Frank McCourt has said he is interested in acquiring the app, according to Yahoo Finance, but he hasn’t yet spoken to ByteDance about a possible deal.
“We’re negotiating with nobody on the ByteDance side, at the moment,” McCourt told Yahoo Finance. “We’ve reached out unsuccessfully because they’ve taken the position, initially, that they were going to win the litigation … and they’re not talking about a sale as of yet.”