Apple is putting TikTok back in the US App Store, according to a source familiar the situation. The return follows US Attorney General Pam Bondi sending a letter to Apple assuring that it won’t be fined for hosting the app, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news. TikTok is also now live in Google’s US Play Store.
Apple and Google removed TikTok from their app stores in January to comply with a law banning apps from TikTok owner ByteDance. Although President Trump signed an executive order on January 20th that directed the Department of Justice not to enforce the ban for 75 days, Apple and Google have until now refused to host it in their stores due to the risk of billions of dollars in penalties for doing so.
TikTok, Apple, and the Department of Justice didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
If you already had TikTok on your phone ahead of the ban, the app has worked with the exception of a brief outage right after the ban went into effect. The service is also available on the web. And TikTok recently started offering its Android app for download outside of Google Play.
This story is developing…