TikTok wants to put on hold a law that could ban it in the U.S.
The company wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review the law in question before it goes into effect Jan. 19, Bloomberg News reported Monday (Dec. 9), citing a court filing.
This delay will also give the new presidential administration a chance to offer up its position on the matter, something that could “moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review,” the filing said.
Pausing the implementation of the law will pose “no imminent threat to national security” or “material harm on the government,” the motion, referencing the rationale behind the ban. The government, meanwhile, asked the court to quickly deny the company’s request.
The request came days after another court ruled against TikTok’s claim that the ban would constitute a free speech violation. The appellate court found that the government was justified in its concerns that the Beijing government — TikTok is owned by China’s ByteDance — could use the app to compile information on U.S. residents.
That decision effectively cleared the way for the ban to go into effect Jan. 19, one day before Trump takes the oath of office. As Bloomberg noted, the president-elect had tried to force a sale of TikTok in his first term, but has since reversed his position and argued against the ban in an appeal to younger voters during his most recent campaign.
Meanwhile, the company’s eCommerce arm, TikTok Shop, has been enjoying strong levels of consumer spending during this holiday shopping season.
A recent report by Reuters, citing figures from data firm Facteus, shows that U.S. spending on TikTok Shop had surpassed spending on Shein and Temu in the seven days leading up to Cyber Monday. Facteus based its findings on information from 140 million consumer debit and credit cards, accounting for 7% to 10% of all U.S. spending.
TikTok pointed to the impact its ban would have on American small businesses and social media creators in court on Monday, per a CNBC report, saying these merchants would lose $1.3 billion in revenue and earnings in just one month if the app were to be shut down.
“Those numbers would only increase if the shutdown extends for more than a month,” Blake Chandlee, president of global business solutions for TikTok, said in the court filing.
OpenAI’s CEO says the generative artificial intelligence (AI) startup has reached approximately 800 million people.
“Something like 10% of the world uses our systems, now a lot,” said Sam Altman, whose comments at a Friday (April 11) TED 2025 event were reported by Seeking Alpha.
Host Chris Anderson pointed out that Altman had said his company’s user base was growing rapidly, doubling in a “just a few weeks.”
The report noted that OpenAI’s growth has been helped along by viral features like the ability to generate images and videos in a range of styles, such as that of legendary Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli.
Last month, Altman said the company, maker of ChatGPT, had added a million users in one hour. Asked during the TED event if the company had considered compensating artists for creating works in their style, Altman said there could be prompts that could trigger payments for specific artists.
“I think it would be cool to figure out a new model where if you say, ‘I want to do it in the name of this artist,’ and they opt in, there’s a revenue model there,” Altman said.
Altman added the company had guidelines to prevent the AI model from generating images in the styles of specific artists or creators. He also discussed the company’s work on AI agents, models that can operate autonomously on behalf of users.
In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote last week about ways the technology can help companies hoping to alleviate the cost of new tariffs. While those levies will eat into the bottom line of many businesses, AI can help reduce costs while ensuring productivity stays up.
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has shown that 82% of workers who use generative AI at least weekly say it increases productivity, even though half of these workers also worry that AI would replace them at their jobs.
“AI can also facilitate material selection by assessing availability, compliance and cost implications, which helps brands find substitute materials when needed without compromising on quality or compliance with regulatory standards,” said Tarun Chandrasekhar, president and CPO at Syndigo.
Still, Pierre Laprée, chief product officer of SpendHQ, told PYMNTS that while AI has a part to play, it’s “misguided” to believe that AI will automatically offset rising costs from shifts in trade policy.
“Tariffs are complex, and so is procurement,” he said. “You need more than an algorithm — you need clean, structured, specific data. Without that, AI won’t reduce risk. It will amplify it.”
