INVESTIGATION: Tech giants begged Trump for a TikTok amnesty. They got it.

The merits of banning TikTok are open to debate. Some see it as a necessary national security measure. Others view it as a violation of the First Amendment. The debate is legitimate.

But this debate belongs in Congress

Congress has settled the matter. By an overwhelming majority. Democrats and Republicans together—which almost never happens. They voted. President Biden signed it into law. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law in January 2025.

And yet. Three months later, the law was rendered toothless by an attorney general who signed letters behind the scenes telling the country’s largest companies: you can violate the law, and we won’t do anything about it.

The executive branch has no right to do that

The U.S. Constitution is crystal clear on this point. Congress writes the laws. The president enforces them. He does not choose which ones to enforce based on his personal connections. He does not negotiate special favors with the companies that fund his campaigns.

What Trump did with TikTok is not an ordinary policy decision. It is a subversion of the very principle of the rule of law.

Let’s ask the uncomfortable question: Who benefits from this amnesty?

The tech giants, of course

Apple keeps the revenue from the App Store on TikTok. Google pockets the revenue from the Play Store. Microsoft continues to bill Azure for cloud hosting. Every day that TikTok stays online in the United States, these companies rake in millions.

Trump’s allies, above all

The consortium set to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations is made up of the president’s direct political and financial allies. Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, has contributed heavily to Republican campaigns. Marc Andreessen has become one of the unofficial ambassadors of pro-Trump Silicon Valley. Michael Dell belongs to the same circle.

In other words: the law was circumvented to allow the president’s friends to purchase, on favorable terms, one of the world’s most valuable digital assets.

Who’s footing the bill?

The 170 million U.S. users, whose data continues to flow through infrastructure that Congress had deemed dangerous. U.S. competitors—Meta, Snap—who followed the rules while TikTok enjoyed a presidential pass. And American democracy, which is learning that a passed law can be overturned by a letter signed behind the scenes.

What would happen if, tomorrow, another government agency decided to suspend enforcement of the Civil Rights Act? Or the antitrust laws? Or environmental protection laws?

The logic is the same

If the president can choose not to enforce a law passed by Congress simply because his friends ask him to, then there is no law anymore. There are only the whims of the executive branch and the interests of its financial backers.

This is exactly what the framers of the U.S. Constitution wanted to prevent. It is exactly what the system of checks and balances was designed to counter. And it is exactly what this administration is dismantling, piece by piece, executive order by executive order, letter by letter.

Apple has not commented. Google has not commented. Microsoft has not commented. The Department of Justice has not commented.

This silence is a strategy

These companies know that every word spoken publicly about this matter is an admission. An admission they begged for. An admission they obtained. An admission that the American system of checks and balances can be circumvented by good lawyers and a complacent president.

So they remain silent. They let the documents speak for them. And they hope that, amid the constant clamor of Trump-era news, this story will disappear before it reaches a wider audience.

There is something deeply troubling about the way this case is unfolding quietly. No protests. No congressional hearings. No prosecutor resigning in protest.

Scandal has become the norm

We are living in a time when institutional corruption no longer shocks us because it is an everyday occurrence. When buying immunity no longer makes headlines because there’s always another scandal the next day. When the guardians of democratic integrity—journalists, judges, opposition lawmakers—are overwhelmed.

The Public Integrity Project has done its job. The Lever has done its job. These documents have been released. They are public. They are damning.

What next?

That’s the question haunting this case. Will there be consequences? An independent prosecutor? A commission of inquiry? A revocation of the amnesty letters?

Or will history simply repeat itself, with Chinese algorithms continuing to feed American teenagers, tech giants continuing to rake in profits, Trump’s allies continuing to buy their way out, and the law passed by Congress remaining an empty shell in the archives of Washington?

Banning TikTok may not have been the right response to the problem posed by ByteDance. That’s a legitimate debate. But the decision was up to Congress. And Congress has made its decision.

What’s at stake here goes beyond TikTok

What is at stake is the principle that laws passed by the people’s elected representatives must be enforced. Not negotiated. Not circumvented. Not rendered meaningless by letters signed behind the scenes.

What is at stake is the difference between a constitutional republic and a personal monarchy where the sovereign grants exemptions to his favorites.

The documents released this week leave no room for doubt. The line has been crossed. It remains to be seen whether anyone, anywhere within the American democratic system, will have the courage to enforce it.

Because if no one does, anything becomes possible

And in that “anything,” there is little left that resembles the democracy Americans still believe they live in.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost