Tony Tan, a Google shareholder, has obtained and published a set of letters the Trump administration sent to multiple tech companies, essentially saying: don’t worry about the law, the president has your back, keep TikTok online.
However, Mr. Tan disagrees. And he’s taking legal action to prove it.
A bit of back story
The TikTok ban has had more ups and downs than any busy person would care to follow.
For today’s news, here’s the part that matters: Towards the end of his term, President Biden signed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” giving ByteDance until January 19, 2025, to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations or face a ban.
When President Trump took office on January 20, he signed an executive order halting the ban and extending the deadline to April 5. In the interim, the app had been down for a couple of days in the U.S., but access was restored after Trump’s assurance to tech companies that his deadline extension was constitutional.
On April 4, Trump extended the deadline again, this time to June 19. The next day, his team sent letters to tech companies and service providers, assuring them that under his order, they wouldn’t face legal consequences for keeping TikTok online, even if the actual law told them otherwise.
These are the letters Tan has now published, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. One of them was sent to Apple, while similar ones were sent to Google, Akamai, Amazon, Digital Realty Trust, Fastly, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Oracle, and LG:
Office of the Attorney General
Washington, D.C. 20530April 5, 2025
Katherine Adams
Senior Vice President & General Counsel
Apple Inc.Ann O’Leary
Ian Gershengorn
Re: Enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act
Dear Ms. Adams:
Article II of the United States Constitution vests in the President the responsibility over national security and the conduct of foreign policy. The President previously determined that an abrupt shutdown of the TikTok platform would interfere with the execution of the President’s constitutional duties to take care of the national security and foreign affairs of the United States. See Executive Order 14166 (E.O. 14166). The Attorney General has concluded that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (the “Act”) is properly read not to infringe upon such core Presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.
Executive Order 14166 instructed the Department of Justice not to take any action on behalf of the United States to enforce the Act for any conduct that occurred during the period of time from January 19, 2025 through April 5, 2025 (the “Covered Period”). Pursuant to the President’s responsibility to protect national security and to conduct foreign policy, the President determined that a 75-day extension of the Covered Period to June 19, 2025 is appropriate and has signed a subsequent Executive Order to effectuate that determination (the “Extended Covered Period”). See Executive Order, Extending The TikTok Enforcement Delay (April 4, 2025).
In the Executive Order signed on April 4, the President directed “the Attorney General to issue a letter to each provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability for any conduct that occurred during” the Extended Covered Period as well as for any conduct from the effective date of the Act. Based on the Attorney General’s review of the facts and circumstances, Apple Inc. has committed no violation of the Act and Apple Inc. has incurred no liability under the Act during the Covered Period or the Extended Covered Period. Apple Inc. may continue to provide services to TikTok as contemplated by these Executive Orders without violating the Act, and without incurring any legal liability.
The Department of Justice is also irrevocably relinquishing any claims the United States might have had against Apple Inc. for the conduct proscribed in the Act during the Covered Period and Extended Covered Period, with respect to TikTok and the larger family of ByteDance Ltd. and TikTok, Inc. applications covered under the Act. This is derived from the Attorney General’s plenary authority over all litigation, civil and criminal, to which the United States, its agencies, or departments, are parties, as well as the Attorney General’s authority to enter settlements limiting the future exercise of executive branch discretion.
Finally, because the Act vests authority for investigations and enforcement of the Act only in the Attorney General, the Department of Justice intends to take all necessary actions to implement the President’s Executive Orders and guard the Attorney General’s exclusive authority to enforce the Act, to include filing amicus briefs, statements of interest, or intervening in litigation.
Regards,
Pamela Bondi
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
What Mr. Tan is saying
In a statement provided to 9to5Mac, Mr. Tan says:
“The President’s purported ‘extensions’ of the TikTok ban have no basis in the law (…) Companies that break the law by continuing to host TikTok are exposing their shareholders to ruinous legal liability. Under federal law, both Trump and a future President have up to five years to prosecute the companies for violations.”
In other words, he is worried that a future court could rule the president didn’t have the authority to override the law, and that companies might still be held liable for violating it by continuing to host TikTok.
In fact, he has sued Google’s parent company, Alphabet, seeking to investigate why it restored TikTok to the Play Store after Trump’s executive order. He believes the company’s decision could open it up to “hundreds of billions of dollars in liability,” which would also affect shareholders like himself.
He is not alone in his concern. As reported by The New York Times:
“There are other things that are more important than TikTok in today’s world, but for pure refusal to enforce the law as Article II requires, it’s just breathtaking,” said Alan Z. Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor who has written about the nonenforcement of the TikTok ban, referring to the part of the Constitution that says presidents must take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
For now, what’s clear is that companies like Apple and Google were asked to take the president at his word, and they did. Whether these letters will actually offer lasting protection or just temporary political cover, will likely be a question for future courts.
In the meantime, it looks like Mr. Tan will keep pushing from the sidelines, not just to hold Google accountable, but to make sure that shareholders like him won’t be left holding the bag if things go south.
Apple Watch deals on Amazon
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
