The U.S. Justice Department announced on Friday that federal employees can now download TikTok on government devices, effectively lifting a ban that has been in place since 2022.
A memorandum opinion addressed to President Donald Trump concluded that the current version of TikTok no longer poses the national security risks that prompted the original prohibition. The DOJ cited ByteDance's completed transfer of control of TikTok's U.S. user data and operations to the TikTok USDS joint venture, which was finalized in January 2026.
Under the divestiture agreement, American and global investors hold 80.1% of the venture while ByteDance retains a 19.9% minority stake. Oracle is one of three main investors in the venture, which retrained and updated TikTok's content recommendation algorithm using U.S. user data, with the algorithm secured in Oracle's U.S. cloud infrastructure.
The DOJ stated that ByteDance's minority stake 'makes no practical difference' to the security assessment. The memo noted that President Trump had instructed that employees of Executive Branch agencies 'may download TikTok onto their official devices, subject to the agency's discretion and consistent with all applicable workplace policies.'
The original ban was enacted under a 2022 law citing concerns that the Chinese-owned app could be used for surveillance or data harvesting. A separate 2024 law required ByteDance to sell its U.S. assets or face a nationwide ban — a measure upheld by the Supreme Court. Trump opted not to enforce the divestiture deadline and has regularly promoted his popularity on the platform.
Approximately 200 million Americans currently use TikTok. Neither the White House nor TikTok immediately commented on the DOJ's decision.
