Apple and Google restored TikTok to their app stores last week.
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Late last week, TikTok returned to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, after the two tech giants received letters from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, assuring the companies the Department of Justice would not enforce a ban passed by Congress last year.
But behind the scenes, the process was more complicated.
Apple and Google were unable to comply with the DOJ’s letter, necessitating the drafting of a second version they could comply with, two people with knowledge of the communications who were not authorized to speak publicly told Forbes. These people described the first letter, which did not come from Bondi, as legally insufficient. The second letter, which did come from her, resolved that issue, convincing the companies they would not be held liable for violating the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) by reinstating TikTok to their app stores.
The letters were the result of an executive order President Donald Trump signed last month, saying he would pause enforcement of the ban for 75 days and asked that “written guidance” be sent to companies who would effectively carry out the ban. But Apple and Google, whose app stores have long distributed TikTok to iPhone and Android users, held off from reinstating the app, fearing enormous fines for keeping the service operational.
“I further order the Attorney General to issue a letter to each provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute,” Trump wrote in the order. That letter was sent, but it took two attempts to get it right.
Google declined to comment. Apple, TikTok and the Justice Department did not return requests for comment.
The law, meant to assuage national security fears over China’s ability to access the data of Americans, called for a ban of TikTok in the U.S. if its Beijing-based parent ByteDance did not sell the service to an American buyer. Tiktok briefly went dark last month as the deadline to divest the app was set to lapse, but was restored hours later.
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The DOJ’s insufficient first letter is among a number self-imposed obstacles the second Trump administration has experienced in its first month. Its adoption of the “move fast and break things” ethos of Silicon Valley, likely imported from key advisors like David Sacks and Elon Musk, have resulted in a number of embarrassing errors for the nascent term. For example, the Department of Energy inadvertently fired hundreds of employees responsible for nuclear weapons security, only to try and hastily rehire them the next day.
First proposed last March, PAFACA received bipartisan support. It was signed a month later by President Joe Biden and upheld by the Supreme Court last month. Trump previously favored a ban on TikTok, issuing an executive order at the end of his first term to effectively do so, calling the “threat” posed by the app a “national emergency.” He reversed course during the 2024 campaign and boasted about his popularity on the platform, declaring that young people would “go crazy without it.” “I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok that I didn’t have originally,” he said when signing the order in January.
Trump said last week that he’d be open to extending the 75-day non-enforcement window if necessary. He also signed another executive order earlier this month directing the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, which he suggested could potentially buy the app, though ByteDance has insisted that TikTok is not for sale.