The US Supreme Court announced it will hear TikTok's appeal of a federal law that threatens to ban the platform. Arguments are scheduled for January 10, a few days before the law comes into force - January 19. The law provides for a ban on TikTok in the US if ByteDance does not sell the platform.

On Monday, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to stay the ban until it decides on the merits of the law. The company said the pause "will create sufficient time for the court to conduct a thorough review ... before closing this critical channel through which Americans communicate with their fellow citizens and the world."

On the same day, TikTok CEO Shou Chew met with US President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, CNN reported.

Chew argued at the meeting that a Supreme Court stay on the ban — which ultimately did not happen — would have given Trump and his administration enough time to comment on the situation.

In early December, the Court of Appeals in Washington rejected TikTok's appeal to review the law.

A number of companies have expressed interest in buying TikTok, such as Amazon, Oracle, Walmart, Microsoft. Earlier this year, video sharing platform Rumble also publicly offered to buy TikTok and could repeat that offer.

China, which has vowed to block the sale of TikTok's algorithm, would have to approve the sale of TikTok to another company, which is unlikely.

If the app is banned in the US, all data of US users may be transferred to China. A precedent for such a move was set in 2020, when TikTok left India. The app and ByteDance retained access to the data of millions of users in India, Forbes reports.

US officials say the Chinese Communist Party may use the app to spy on Americans or influence public discourse, but TikTok has denied the allegations. After Joe Biden signed the anti-TikTok bill into law, the company said that conditioning the sale "is not an option."

Experts and reports from Forbes indicate that ByteDance and TikTok are significantly connected. Earlier this year, former US National Security Agency adviser Glenn Gerstell said: "There is no way to spin off the US part of TikTok and sell it."

ByteDance tried to calm fears by pointing out how 100 percent of US traffic is being diverted to Oracle and US digital services infrastructure. They also claim that about 60 percent of the company is owned by institutional investors, including the Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International Group.

Forbes revealed how ByteDance used TikTok to spy on journalists and how the platform itself mismanaged user data, including their financial information and the personal contacts of creators, advertisers, celebrities and politicians.

According to the latest data from April this year, TikTok has about 170 million users in the US.