As the White House worked to secure the sale of TikTok’s US business to President Donald Trump’s allies, Big Tech firms received personal promises from the Justice Department that they wouldn’t be prosecuted for violating a new national security law by hosting the Chinese social media platform.

But it wasn’t enough — new documents, which were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the Public Integrity Project and provided exclusively to the Lever, show Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft successfully pressured federal prosecutors to issue additional assurances granting them total amnesty for hosting and conducting business for the app.

In 2024, in response to concerns that the Chinese government could access data from TikTok — a social media app owned by Beijing firm ByteDance — to spy on Americans, Congress passed the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which prohibited US firms from hosting overseas social platforms deemed a national security threat.

But in an executive order issued on Trump’s first day back in office — hours after Big Tech CEOs enjoyed front-row seats at his inauguration — the president delayed enforcement of the law pending an “appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans.” The order was a win for Trump allies invested in TikTok, such as Trump megadonor Jeffrey Yass, who dumped $16 million into Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC amid the ongoing sales discussions.

Trump’s order was also backed by personal assurances from then Attorney General Pam Bondi to tech companies, including Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, that they wouldn’t be prosecuted.

But the public promises weren’t enough. Attorneys for Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple then emailed the Justice Department seeking additional assurances that they would not be prosecuted for working with TikTok, correspondence reviewed by the Lever reveals for the first time.

In a February 8, 2025, email, Apple asked the Justice Department to confirm it was “relinquishing any claims that the United States might have against Apple for the conduct proscribed in the Act during the Covered Period.” The email was sent by Kate Adams, Apple’s senior vice president and general counsel, who previously served as a Justice Department trial attorney and as a clerk to both Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and then appellate court Judge Stephen Breyer.

Two days later, lawyers for Alphabet, Google’s parent company, sought similar guarantees, including confirmation that the president’s backdoor advocacy against a law was protected under his “constitutional responsibility” to protect national security.

The attorneys who authored the letter, Rush Atkinson and Jeannie Rhee, previously worked on Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 presidential victory. Atkinson also served as assistant chief of a Justice Department criminal fraud unit.

A week later, Microsoft also reached out, seeking “assurances that the United States releases, and waives its authority to seek, any and all enforcement actions or penalties for services provided to TikTok or other ByteDance apps during the Covered Period.”

Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple did not respond to the Lever’s request for comment.

In responses sent in June 2025, Bondi again assured these firms that they wouldn’t face penalties under the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act for their work with TikTok for “any conduct from the effective date of the Act,” which was January 19, 2025, President Joe Biden’s last full day in office. The Justice Department also sent these assurance letters to Amazon; Oracle; DLA Piper, a law firm that previously employed former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff; and Digital Realty Trust, Inc., a data center property investor.

Google, Amazon, and Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, each donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, according to campaign watchdog OpenSecrets. Microsoft donated $750,000 to the fund.

In December 2025, the Trump administration closed a deal selling TikTok’s US operations to investors including Oracle, owned by billionaire GOP megadonor and CBS News owner Larry Ellison; Silver Lake, a private equity firm; and MGX, an Emirati state-backed investment fund.

The White House is reportedly collecting a roughly $10 billion fee from these investors for helping to broker the $14 billion sale.