Justice Department clears TikTok for federal devices after ownership shift
A new legal opinion says the federal device ban no longer covers the TikTok app now offered in the U.S., though agencies can still block it.
By Sal Moretti · Money Reporter
3 min read
The Justice Department says the federal ban that kicked TikTok off government devices no longer covers the version of the app available in the United States.
In a 12-page opinion issued Thursday, the department’s Office of Legal Counsel said the 2022 law targeted TikTok because of its ownership ties to ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that previously controlled the app’s U.S. operations. The office advises the executive branch on legal questions.
The opinion was sent to the deputy counsel to the president six months after TikTok’s U.S. business moved into a new joint venture led mostly by American investors. ByteDance still owns a minority stake, according to the opinion and related reporting.
The Justice Department said Congress barred only the version of TikTok with the ownership structure that raised national security concerns. Because the U.S. version now sits under a different venture, the office concluded that the 2022 device ban does not apply to it.
Agencies still get the final call
The ruling does not mean TikTok will appear on every federal phone overnight. The Office of Legal Counsel said individual agencies may still decide whether workers can download it on official devices.
The opinion also said agencies can block the app for workplace reasons, including employee productivity, even if the old statutory ban no longer controls the decision.
The opinion notes that Executive Branch employees have been told they may download TikTok on official devices, as long as their agency allows it and the use follows workplace policies.
The White House referred a request for comment to the Justice Department, CBS News reported. CBS News said it also contacted TikTok for comment.
How TikTok got here
Congress passed the federal-device ban in late 2022 with bipartisan support. The law ordered executive branch agencies to remove TikTok from government-owned devices and also covered successor apps or services developed or provided by ByteDance or a ByteDance-owned entity.
The move followed years of concern in Washington that data from a ByteDance-owned social media platform could be accessed by the Chinese government. TikTok has long said those fears were unfounded.
Congress escalated the fight in 2024, passing a law that would effectively bar TikTok from the U.S. unless ByteDance separated from the app’s American operations by January 2025. That law took effect one day before President Trump’s inauguration.
Trump, who supported a TikTok ban during his first term but later opposed banning the app, instructed the Justice Department not to enforce the 2024 law while he worked on an ownership deal.
That deal, finalized in January 2026, gave a group of mostly U.S.-based investors a majority stake in the TikTok version used by Americans. ByteDance kept 19.9% of the venture, just below the law’s 20% limit.
Oracle, chaired by Larry Ellison, is among the new investors. The venture, called TikTok U.S. Data Security, or TikTok USDS, has promised cybersecurity controls, including retraining the recommendation algorithm with U.S. user data and having Oracle review and validate source code on an ongoing basis.
The arrangement has drawn questions from lawmakers who want proof it answers the security concerns behind the ban. Two investors in competing tech companies Alphabet and Meta have also sued the federal government, arguing the deal does not comply with the law. The government has asked for that case to be dismissed, and it remains pending.
This story draws on original reporting from CBS News.