"TikTok completely suspended service in the U.S. from the 19th"...Musk's acquisition is also denied.

Chinese video platform TikTok plans to completely suspend services in the U.S. from the 19th when the "TikTok Ban Act" takes effect in the U.S., Reuters reported on the 15th local time, citing sources.

If the U.S. Supreme Court does not accept TikTok's application for provisional injunction, the service in the U.S. will be completely terminated, the sources said.

TikTok has filed a provisional injunction with the U.S. Supreme Court to suspend the enforcement of a law banning TikTok in the U.S. from the 19th unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance sells TikTok's U.S. business rights to a U.S. company.

The source added that the complete shutdown will prompt U.S. users to see pop-up messages directed to websites that provide information about the outage when they try to access the TikTok app, and users will also be given the option to download their data from the app.

There are 170 million TikTok users in the United States.

The total ban on services is beyond the 'TikTok Ban Act'.

The 'No TikTok Act' requires platforms such as the Google Play Store or Apple App Store to stop downloading new TikTok apps.

It does not prohibit users who have already installed TikTok from continuing to use the app.

However, existing users can also use the app, but it cannot be updated, which is likely to degrade performance and stop working over time.

The Supreme Court is unlikely to accept TikTok's injunction.

Major U.S. media, including the New York Times (NYT) and the Washington Post (WP), reported that the Supreme Court is likely to allow the enforcement of the law based on oral arguments held on the 10th.

Chinese authorities are also considering selling TikTok's U.S. business to Tesla CEO Elon Musk as an alternative, but TikTok dismissed it as "complete fiction."

In the meantime, if TikTok parent ByteDance decides to sell TikTok, the market value will reach up to $50 billion.

Angelo Gino, senior vice president of market analyst CFRA Research, estimated TikTok's value at $40 billion (W58 trillion) to $50 billion (W72 trillion) by comparing the number and sales of U.S. users to competing apps, according to U.S. economic media CNBC.

According to market research firm Sensor Tower, TikTok has about 115 million monthly mobile users in the United States, which is less than Instagram (131 million), but far ahead of Snapchat (96 million) and Reddit (32 million).

The valuation is down from the $60 billion estimated when the U.S. Congress passed the law in March last year and President Joe Biden signed it next month.

Gino explained that the depreciation was attributed to changes in the industrial environment, including geopolitical risks from TikTok and other corporate values, and that TikTok's algorithm was excluded, which further lowered its valuation.

The TikTok algorithm is a key asset that recommends content that suits users' preferences, and there have been concerns that it could pose a threat to U.S. user data security.