ByteDance filed a lawsuit in a federal appeals court Tuesday seeking to halt an executive order by President Donald Trump and the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States that would force the company to divest itself of the short-form video app TikTok. The deadline for that divestment is Thursday.
In August, Trump issued an executive order telling Beijing, China-based ByteDance that it would have to sell off its financial interest in TikTok and relinquish control in order for it to continue doing business in the U.S. The CFIUS followed up that order with a review of ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly and determined that the app created from that acquisition was a “national security threat.”
In its petition filed with the D.C. District appeals court, the company asked that the divestment order and CFIUS action be “set aside” and that the court should grant “any further relief that may be appropriate.”
ByteDance has been negotiating a sale of its U.S. operations and seemed to have hashed out a deal with U.S. investors, Oracle, and Walmart earlier in the year. For unknown reasons, that deal has seemingly stalled as ByteDance battles the government in court over potential bans.
The U.S. government has been unsuccessful in banning TikTok in America, with several federal courts issuing preliminary injunctions to halt multiple phases of the ban.