In a sharp escalation of the U.S. government’s efforts to curtail TikTok’s presence in the United States, two senior lawmakers on Friday called on Apple and Google to remove the popular video-sharing app from their app stores by January 19, citing national security concerns.
Reps. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., the top Republican and Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), sent a joint letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, urging immediate compliance with the law. The lawmakers emphasized that Congress had provided “ample time — 233 days and counting” for TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest its ownership of the app.
“Without a qualified divestiture, the Act makes it unlawful to ‘[p]rovid[e] services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary-controlled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace,’” the lawmakers wrote, directly referencing the companies’ app stores. They stressed that Apple and Google must take “necessary steps” to comply with the law by the January 19, 2025, deadline.
A Legal Backdrop for Divestiture
The demand follows a law signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year aimed at addressing concerns that TikTok could compromise U.S. national security by allowing the Chinese government to access sensitive user data. The law requires ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a nationwide ban on the app. TikTok has so far failed to comply with the divestiture requirement, but its legal avenues to challenge the law appear to be narrowing.
Just last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously upheld the law, dismissing TikTok’s claims that a forced divestiture violates the First Amendment. The court’s ruling has paved the way for lawmakers to intensify their push to enforce the measure.
Lawmakers Double Down on TikTok CEO
In a separate letter to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi urged the company to “immediately execute a qualified divestiture,” pointing to the court’s decision as a clear rejection of TikTok’s legal arguments.
“Congress has acted decisively to defend the national security of the United States and protect TikTok’s American users from the Chinese Communist Party,” they wrote.
The lawmakers’ letters reflect growing bipartisan concern over TikTok’s ownership and its potential to serve as a conduit for Chinese surveillance. Critics argue that ByteDance’s ties to the CCP pose risks to the privacy of U.S. citizens and the integrity of national security. TikTok has long denied these claims, asserting that it stores U.S. user data on servers located outside of China and has implemented safeguards to prevent unauthorized access.
A High-Stakes Deadline
The January 19 deadline looms as a pivotal moment in the battle over TikTok’s future in the United States. If Apple and Google fail to remove the app from their platforms, they could face legal repercussions for violating federal law. For TikTok, the stakes are just as high: without a qualified divestiture, the app could be banned outright in one of its largest markets.
TikTok, which boasts over 150 million users in the U.S. alone, has not yet responded publicly to Friday’s letters. Apple and Google have also declined to comment on their plans to comply with the law.
As the clock ticks closer to the January deadline, the battle over TikTok’s fate underscores the broader geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, with the app caught squarely in the middle. The outcome could set a precedent for how the U.S. addresses foreign-owned technologies in the future.