President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday said he will "most likely" give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban in the U.S. when he takes office on Monday, NBC News reported.
Trump told the network that he hadn't yet made a final decision but was considering granting the popular app an extension on Sunday's deadline for its Chinese-owned company to divest itself.
"I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it's appropriate. You know, it's appropriate," he told NBC's Kristen Welker in a phone interview.
"We have to look at it carefully. It's a very big situation," Trump said. "If I decide to do that, I'll probably announce it on Monday."
President Joe Biden said Friday he wouldn't enforce the law banning TikTok, which is used by more than 170 million Americans, punting the controversial issue to Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban on TikTok on Friday, siding with Congress' concerns it is a national security risk rather than the company's First Amendment claims.
TikTok released a statement late Friday warning that without intervention by the Biden administration "unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19."
Congress last spring approved a law, signed by Biden, giving Beijing-based ByteDance until Jan. 19 to find another buyer or be banned in the United States.
Lawmakers feared ByteDance's connection to the Chinese government and China's ability to use the app to spread propaganda and collect the personal information for millions of Americans for nefarious purposes.
But the law also stipulated that a 90-day extension on the deadline can be granted if there is "significant progress" in finding a buyer.
Trump didn't say in the interview if that was the case.
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