TikTok has threatened legal action against President Donald Trump to stop his executive order from banning Chinese parent company Bytedance from operating in the U.S.
In a statement issued by TikTok, the company argued that Trump’s executive order undermines the rule of law and prohibits open markets: “We will pursue all remedies available to us in order to ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and our users are treated fairly – if not by the administration, then by the U.S. courts.”
The battle between TikTok and the Trump administration has only become more heated in the past few weeks, with Trump verbally pressing the company to sell U.S operations in the next 45 days. His August 6 executive order officially starts the clock on sanctions for the Chinese-owned app.
In the executive order, Trump alleges that the video app’s data collection “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”
TikTok’s threat of legal actions comes as a new response from the social app.
TikTok originally entered into preliminary talks about selling to a U.S. company after the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States announced it would force a sale. However, the company never confirmed it would sell, instead telling employees it would explore other possibilities. Microsoft was named as one of the initial U.S. tech companies interested in a possible deal, but has not confirmed whether the executive order has changed circumstances.
Digital Trends reached out to TikTok and Microsoft for comment and will update this story when we hear back.
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