Apple, T-Mobile and Google face billions in civil penalties over TikTok
Tony Tan is an Alphabet stockholder, which makes him more than a little concerned that the company’s Google subsidiary might have left itself open to potentially billions of dollars in civil penalties. Other tech firms, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Oracle, and LG, are also potentially on the hook. To understand what happened, we have to go back to January 20th, the date that Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time.
Right up against a deadline because of a bill signed into law by then-President Joe Biden in April 2024. That bill gave TikTok owner ByteDance 270 days to sell the app or TikTok would get banned in the U.S. President Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline to April 5th. And when that deadline and the one after it failed to result in the sale of the app, Trump extended his executive orders with the last one keeping hands off on TikTok until September 17th, 2025.
The day after the first extension of Trump’s executive order, April 5th, the administration sent letters to tech companies, including Apple, telling them that even if the law said otherwise, they would not face any consequences from keeping TikTok online. The original law signed by President Biden said that any company helping TikTok continue operating in the U.S. in violation of the law, faces up to $850 billion in liability. And since the executive order did not make TikTok legal in the U.S., Mr. Tan, the Google stockholder, has some concerns.
“Neither you nor former President Joe Biden chose to trigger the 90-day extension of the deadline in the statute. Instead, in an executive order, you directed the Department of Justice to not enforce the law for 75 days. This prescribed non-enforcement of the TikTok ban was not only unlawful but also raised serious questions about TikTok’s future, as the law imposes liability — up to $850 billion — on companies for facilitating TikTok’s continued operations in the United States, such as Oracle for providing cloud computing services to TikTok and Apple and Google for distributing TikTok in their respective app stores”
-Letter to President Trump written by Senator Edward Markey, Senator Cory Booker, and Senator Chris Van Hollen
As a result of Google’s relisting of TikTok in the Play Store, Mr. Tan sued Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to find out why it returned TikTok to the Play Store considering it could leave the company facing a liability as high as $850 billion. He says that Alphabet’s decision could affect all of its shareholders.
Washington, D.C. 20530
April 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
