Google Shareholder Sues Over TikTok Extension, Points to ‘Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Liability’

A Google shareholder and software engineer is suing the US DOJ and Google for the Trump administration’s failure to enforce the federal TikTok ban.

As the Trump administration continues to extend the TikTok divesture deadline, software engineer and Google shareholder Tony Tan says enough is enough. Tan is suing the US Department of Justice for allegedly failing to turn over records as to why it has not taken action against Google and Apple. He asserts they are violating the law by continuing to host TikTok on their app stores.

Now, Tan has filed an additional shareholder lawsuit against Google parent Alphabet. In it, Tan alleges the company wrongfully denied a request he made for internal documents about Google’s decision to risk billions in fines by not complying with the TikTok ban.

“This purported extension, now issued for the third time by President Trump, has no basis in the law,” says Tan. “Companies that break the law by continuing to host TikTok are exposing their shareholders to ruinous legal liability. Under federal law, both Trump and a future President have up to five years to prosecute companies for violations.”

“The biggest thing that motivates me here is I’ve been frustrated by the volume of recent attacks on our legal system,” Tan explains. “If Google is outright breaking the law, and they don’t have to acknowledge it, they very much are above the law, and that doesn’t seem right to me.”

While Tan declined to specify whether he personally supports the TikTok ban, he believes the real issue is enforcement. “There is a federal law that says the TikTok app should not be on your store, and I can see TikTok on the app store,” he says. “Congress passed the law, the Supreme Court upheld it. It’s not debatable.”

Google, he says, is openly ignoring the law, and he wants to understand the legal basis for doing so—as well as the extent to which shareholders should be concerned about Google’s potential liability.

Notably, companies that violate the TikTok ban by continuing to distribute the app can face fines of up to $5,000 per user. According to Tan’s lawsuit, Google should not be relying on Trump’s executive order to extend the deadline to shield them from legal culpability. Even the attorney general determined that while the company could continue to offer TikTok “without incurring legal liability,” there is “no assurance that [shareholders] will not be exposed to liability” in the future.

Tan’s court filing seeks internal files under a statute giving investors broad access to corporate records to investigate potential corporate wrongdoing. These cases often indicate an attempt to find evidence for future litigation.