The future of TikTok in the US remains uncertain after President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to delay implementing a law that would ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform.

TikTok is set to be outlawed in America on January 19 over national security concerns, unless it is sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance. The Supreme Court will hear the company’s arguments against a ban on January 10, and could offer it a stay of execution. But if the court rules against the firm it will have just a few days to find a buyer or close down.

President Trump has asked the Supreme Court to delay implementing the banning law until after he takes office.

Only President Trump can 'negotiate resolution' to US TikTok ban

In a letter to the court, President Trump’s lawyer D. John Sauer said: “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute.

“Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump’s incoming administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case.”

Sauer wrote that “President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government - concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged.”

Trump met TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in December after declaring he had “a warm spot” for the platform. His position is a far cry from his previous stint as President, when he tried to ban TikTok and backed a deal that would have seen its American operations sold to Oracle and Walmart. This proposal was eventually canned.

The TikTok ban falls under new bipartisan legislation, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by outgoing President Joe Biden in April. Banning TikTok would be the final action of the Biden Administration, with Trump’s inauguration scheduled for January 20.

US TikTok ban: Is Trump's delay request legal?

TikTok says a ban would violate the First Amendment of the American constitution. Legal experts, meanwhile, say President Trump is asking the Supreme Court to exceed its mandate by delaying the ban.

Speaking to Politico, Alan Rozenshtein, a former official at the Department of Justice who now teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School, said: “The fact that the law goes into effect the day before Trump is inaugurated is just too bad for Trump, but a future president cannot ask a court to delay a law.” He added that the Supreme Court “does not have the authority to pause a law that was written by Congress and enacted” without considering its constitutionality.

Since the original ban was mooted in 2020, TikTok has been moving US user data to Oracle’s cloud.

In Oracle's annual report filing earlier this year, the company has stated that the ban would have a negative effect on its revenue and profits.

It said: "In April 2024, the US president signed into law a bill that will make it unlawful to provide Internet hosting services to TikTok that are used to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of TikTok for users within the US if certain steps are not taken by TikTok’s owners within a set time frame.

"If we are unable to provide those services to TikTok, and if we cannot redeploy that capacity in a timely manner, our revenues and profits would be adversely impacted."