Unfortunately, my TikTok is not available right now. There was a law passed to ban TikTok in the United States. I’m having a hard time because that means I can’t…

TikTok went down in the United States on Saturday evening, less than two hours before the ban was set to take effect. The extraordinary outage cuts off access to one of the world’s most popular social media apps, which had been used by 170 million Americans.

Visitors to the app were greeted with a message that read: “Sorry, TikTok is not available right now. A law has been passed banning TikTok in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

TikTok’s move comes after the Supreme Court on Friday upheld a ban that was passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law in April by President Joe Biden. The law bars U.S. companies from hosting or offering content for the Chinese-owned social media platform unless it is sold to a buyer in the United States or one of its allies.

But TikTok might not be gone for long. The company has suggested it could be back soon, perhaps as early as Monday.

“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to restore TikTok once he takes office,” the company posted in its pop-up message to users who opened the app starting Saturday night. “Stay tuned!”

President-elect Trump said he will “most likely” delay banning TikTok for 90 days after taking office on Monday, adding that he has not made a final decision in a phone interview  with NBC News  on Saturday.

“I think that would certainly be an option that we would look at. The 90-day extension is something that will probably be done, because it is the appropriate thing to do. You know, it is the appropriate thing to do. We have to look at it carefully. It is a very important situation,” Trump said in the interview.

“If I decide to do it, I will probably announce it on Monday,” he added.

TikTok’s shutdown — and the suggestion that it may soon restore service — is the latest twist in a months-long saga that has left the app’s fate in limbo.

The app also disappeared from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store. And other apps owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, including CapCut, also displayed a similar message on Saturday night.

Lawmakers said TikTok’s ties to China and its access to vast amounts of data posed a threat to national security.

Many US users told CNN they were bracing for the app’s end, including influencers and other small businesses who said they  relied on the platform for a living  . Still, they said they remained hopeful the app would somehow be saved.

But the Supreme Court’s decision dashed hopes for last-minute judicial relief.

Some of the companies that operate app stores and computer servers are said to be concerned about the possibility of being held liable for violating the terms of the ban. Those service providers have pledged to stop offering the app to avoid legal consequences, a person familiar with the companies’ discussions told CNN.

Meanwhile, Trump, who was the first to warn about the dangers of TikTok five years ago, is now presenting himself as the app’s savior. Earlier this month, on his Truth Social account, he posted statistics about his own popularity on TikTok and asked: “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?”

TikTok CEO Shou Chew met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in the weeks before the ban went into effect and is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Saturday.

The law passed last year allows the president to delay the ban from taking effect by 90 days but requires proof that the parties working to arrange the sale of TikTok to a U.S. company have made significant progress.

But TikTok owner ByteDance has turned down potential buyers. The company has cited its popularity among American users and its value to small businesses across the country as it struggles to stay online without any change in ownership.

After the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 to uphold the ban, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre signaled the administration would not enforce the law on Biden’s final day in office.

Because of the federal holiday weekend and inauguration, “actions to implement the law simply have to fall to the next administration,” he said.

But TikTok wasn’t satisfied with that statement. According to a person familiar with the matter, some service providers — companies like Google and Apple that would face exorbitant fines for allowing U.S. access to TikTok once the ban takes effect — told TikTok they believed they were vulnerable under the law as of Sunday.

A person close to TikTok says “several critical service providers” told TikTok they would no longer offer the app or its data, forcing the app to go offline. The service providers cited fears that the ban could be enforced as early as Sunday, despite signals from the Biden administration to the contrary.

So TikTok took steps to remove the app, at least for now.

The move, and Trump’s emerging name, could put even more pressure on the president-elect to negotiate a solution in the coming days or weeks.

On Saturday, the company also told TikTok employees that the situation was “disappointing” but that the company was working on a solution.

“We know this is disappointing for you, not only as employees, but also as users. However, we are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us to find a solution to restore TikTok once he takes office. Please know that our teams are working tirelessly to bring our app back to the US as soon as possible,” the message to employees reads.

A White House source reiterated to CNN that the Biden administration will not impose any fines for keeping TikTok active on Sunday.

At the same time, however, some Biden officials are happy for TikTok to go away for a day, since the law was passed with strong bipartisan support.

The decision “will be made by the next president anyway,” Biden told reporters on Friday.

On Saturday, the White House called TikTok’s warning about disappearing a “ruse.”

“We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take action in the coming days before the Trump administration takes office on Monday,” Jean-Pierre said. “We have made our position clear and straightforward: steps to implement this law will fall to the next administration. TikTok and other companies should therefore raise any concerns with them.”

A TikTok spokesperson had no immediate reaction to the White House statement.

The company said it expected service providers, such as companies that operate servers full of videos, to restrict access to the app at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday.

In the Apple and Google app stores, the most popular free apps over the past week have been TikTok-like apps, including two that are also owned by Chinese companies. One of them, the photo-sharing app Lemon8, is owned by ByteDance, as is TikTok. But Lemon8 may suffer the same fate as TikTok in the future.

Given Trump’s public comments about TikTok, any blackout might not last long.

Trump is said to be considering issuing an executive order that could effectively pause the ban and buy some time to find a long-term solution.

But he will face pressure from multiple sides. Some Republican senators, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, remain staunch supporters of the ban.

“ByteDance and its Chinese communist masters had nine months to sell TikTok before the Sunday deadline,” Cotton wrote on X. “The mere fact that communist China refuses to allow its sale reveals exactly what TikTok is: a communist spy app.”

Analyst Richard Greenfield of LightShed Partners, who has long followed the TikTok saga, anticipates that TikTok will ultimately remain online in the United States.

On Saturday, Perplexity AI, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence search engine startup, confirmed to CNN that it has submitted an offer to ByteDance to merge with TikTok.