- Apple and Android brought TikTok back to their app stores for US users on Thursday night.
- Since late January, TikTok’s service — but not the app itself — was available in the US.
- TikTok’s app was removed due to a divest-or-ban law signed by former President Joe Biden.
Apple and Android have restored TikTok to their US app stores on Thursday night.
Last month, the companies made ByteDance apps, including TikTok, unavailable in the US to comply with a divest-or-ban law that former President Joe Biden signed in April.
TikTok itself went dark for a couple of hours in the US leading up to January 20. But it was brought back online after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his inauguration day that delayed the ban by 75 days.
Trump said he would be open to Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison buying TikTok to keep it operating in the country and said that the US should own half of the app. Earlier this month, Musk said that he does not plan to buy TikTok. “I usually build companies from scratch,” Musk said.
Last year, the bill to ban TikTok received bipartisan support in the House and Senate due to national security concerns with parent company ByteDance’s Chinese ownership. ByteDance spent months challenging the law that required it to be divested or banned from the US before January 19.
On January 17, the Supreme Court upheld the ban.
Apple and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A representative for Android confirmed TikTok was back in the app store.
Apple has also cut a page that listed the ByteDance apps that were taken down.
The Android restoration comes days after TikTok announced an Android package kit that allows users to download TikTok and TikTok Lite to bypass the ban.
Rivals and upstarts pounce
In the week after TikTok was removed from app stores, sellers on eBay and Facebook Marketplace listed used iPhones for thousands of dollars above their retail prices, saying that the phones come with the TikTok app pre-installed.
Secondhand sellers were not the only one capitalizing on TikTok’s ban. Meta-owned Instagram announced the March 13 release of a new video editing application called Edits, a direct competitor to TikTok and CapCut, a day after the TikTok ban went into effect.
Pinterest also circulated a pitch deck to woo advertisers from TikTok, Business Insider previously reported.
During TikTok’s brief absence, users flocked to some alternatives, including Clapper and Chinese app RedNote.
