President Donald Trump says he will issue an executive order as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok, the Beijing-based social media and video-sharing platform.
“As far as TikTok is concerned we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump told the press pool traveling with him to Florida on Air Force One late Friday night.
Microsoft had expressed interest in purchasing TikTok’s U.S. operations, but the pool report says the president “made clear he was not in favor of a deal to let a U.S. company buy TikTok’s American operations.”
TikTok has been accused of posing a national security threat.
Friday evening Vox’s tech site Recode noted “for established US social media giants Facebook and Google, the decision [to force a sale of TikTok] could significantly weaken their fiercest new competitor.”
Meanwhile, experts say he cannot “ban” TikTok.
Newsweek’s White House Correspondent Andrew Feinberg:
Top national security attorney Bradley Moss also says Trump cannot ban the company:
Noted attorney and political commentator:
Dave Jorgenson, “The Washington Post’s TikTok guy”:
Another tech site, The Verge, in early July published an article detailing “How the Trump administration could ‘ban’ TikTok.”
This is a breaking news and developing story. This story has been updated.