TikTok has filed a federal lawsuit against Montana in response to a recently passed state law that would ban the popular video service in the state.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, is intended to “prevent the state of Montana from unlawfully banning TikTok,” lawyers for the app’s parent company, Bytedance wrote.
“Montana’s ban abridges freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment, violates the U.S. Constitution in multiple other respects, and is preempted by federal law,” the attorneys said.
Last week, Montana became the first U.S. state to ban TikTok over allegations that the Chinese government can use the app for intelligence gathering operations. When the ban comes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, Apple and Google’s app stores will not be legally allowed to offer TikTok to users in Montana, although it’s unclear how those companies will be able to implement the ban.
Montana governor Greg Gianforte described the ban as “important measure” intended to advance “our shared priority to protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance.”
TikTok disputes Montana’s allegations that the Chinese government “could access data about TikTok users, and that TikTok exposes minors to harmful online content,” the lawsuit said.
“Yet the State cites nothing to support these allegations, and the State’s bare speculation ignores the reality that Plaintiff has not shared, and would not share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users, including by storing all U.S. user data by default in the United States and by erecting safeguards to protect U.S. user data,” the attorneys added.
TikTok has been under fire from U.S. lawmakers over its alleged ties to the Chinese Government. Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, withstood tough questioning from politicians in March, and attempted to assuage their concerns by highlighting the company’s work with U.S. tech giant Oracle to develop infrastructure in Texas intended to store and process people’s data in the country.
With the lawsuit, TikTok hopes that the court finds Montana’s ban “unconstitutional and preempted by federal law.”
UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 1, 2024.
Kent Nishimura | Getty Images
Following the massive cyberattack on UnitedHealth Group’s Change Healthcare unit last year, the company launched a temporary funding assistance program to help medical practices with their short-term cash flow needs, offering no-interest loans with no added fees.
A little over a year later, UnitedHealth is aggressively going after borrowers, demanding they “immediately repay” their outstanding balances, according to documents viewed by CNBC and providers who received funding. Some groups have been asked to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars in a matter of days.
Optum, UnitedHealth’s financial, pharmacy and care services arm, is telling borrowers that it reserves the right to “begin offsetting claims payable” to the practices, meaning the company will withhold separate funds until it recoups the loan.
It’s a significant change in posture for the company, which suffered a cyberattack in February 2024 that compromised data from around 190 million Americans, the largest reported health-care breach in U.S. history. The ensuing disruption caused severe fallout across the health-care system, leaving many providers temporarily unable to get paid for their services. Some dipped into their personal savings to keep their practices afloat.
During a Senate hearing about the attack in May, UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty said providers would only be required to repay the loans when “they, not me, but they confirm that their cash flow is normalized.”
Several doctors who took advantage of the financing told CNBC that they can’t meet the company’s new demands. Dr. Christine Meyer, an internist who started a practice in Exton, Pennsylvania, received a letter from Optum earlier this month telling her to immediately submit her organization’s payment.
“We are not in any position to start repaying this loan,” Meyer, who started her practice about 20 years ago, told CNBC. She has been a vocal critic of UnitedHealth following the breach.
“I’m just looking at all my legal options at this point,” Meyer said. “But repaying them $750,000 in five days is obviously not going to happen.”
UnitedHealth didn’t comment on specific cases, but a spokesperson for Change Healthcare confirmed that the company has started recouping the loans.
“Now, more than one year post the event and with services restored, we have begun the process of recouping the interest-free funding we provided to providers,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The company said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services took the same approach last year “under its own cyber-attack lending program.” HHS launched a separate funding assistance program through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last March. CMS said it would automatically recoup payments from Medicare claims, and providers could accrue interest, according to a release.
“We continue to work with providers on repayment and other options, and continue to reach out to those providers that have not been responsive to previous calls or email requests for more information,” the Change Healthcare spokesperson said.
Providers were told that UnitedHealth reserved the right to withhold future payments when they signed up for the funding assistance program, the company added. CNBC independently reviewed a copy of a loan agreement for the program and confirmed this statement.
Change Healthcare, which offers payment and revenue cycle management tools, was acquired by Optum in 2022.
After discovering the breach last year, UnitedHealth said it isolated and disconnected the impacted systems. The company paid out more than $9 billion to providers in 2024, and more than $4.5 billion has already been repaid, according to the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report in January. UnitedHealth said providers would receive an invoice once standard payment operations resumed, and that they would be subject to a repayment period of 45 business days.
“Change Healthcare will notify the recipient that the funding amount is due after claims processing or payment processing services have resumed and payments impacted during the service disruption period are processed,” the website says.
Meyer said that when the breach took place, she watched her practice’s daily deposits shrivel from the range of $60,000 to $80,000 to about $150 “overnight.” She applied for Optum’s temporary funding assistance program, and after some difficulty and back and forth with the company, she ultimately received a total of $756,900 in financial assistance.
Former Senator Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., shared Meyer’s story during the congressional hearing in May. He asked Witty about the company’s approach to the repayment process.
“I’d like to absolutely confirm to you and Dr. Meyer that we have no intention of asking for loan repayment until after she determines that her business is back to normal,” Witty told lawmakers. “Even then, we would not look for repayment until 45 business days – 60 calendar days – after that and there would be no interest and no fee associated with that loan.”
“So it would be a determination she makes?” Casey asked.
“That’s absolutely right,” Witty said.
Meyer said that’s not what happened.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. headquarters stands in Minnetonka, Minnesota, U.S.
Mike Bradley | Bloomberg | Getty Images
She received a notice from Optum on Jan. 24, which was viewed by CNBC, that requested repayment since “the service disruption has ended for most clients.” Meyer said she called and told the company she was “not in any position to pay.”
Meyer claims that her practice lost more than $1 million in revenue due to the Change Healthcare cyberattack. She told CNBC the figure was based on a forensic financial analysis her practice carried out by comparing its charges against payments over recent years. The $1.2 million figure accounts for losses across all its insurers, not just UnitedHealthcare, Meyer said.
On April 1, Meyer received another notice requesting immediate repayment within five business days. The letter was addressed to Meyer. But the name of the practice on the letter, Insight Counseling, as well as the total amount due, $925,200, were incorrect.
Meyer said she called Optum again and was told the company made a mistake, but that she had five days to repay her actual total of $750,000. At that point, the company would start withholding her UnitedHealthcare payments, which she described as a “shakedown.”
Meyer said her practice typically receives annual claims payments of about $150,000 to $200,000 from UnitedHealthcare.
“I guess I’ll just let them take those payments back for the next three years until they get their money back,” she told CNBC.
In a post on LinkedIn on Thursday, Meyer wrote that she and her team “made a plan to leave the least amount of money in the account set up to receive payments from UnitedHealthcare. If it isn’t there, they can’t get it.”
Apple is once again in the crosshairs of a global trade war. This time, the stakes may be even higher.
On April 2, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on a wide range of imported goods, including those from China, India, Vietnam and other countries critical to Apple’s supply chain. That move sent shockwaves through global markets, wiping out over $640 billion in Apple’s market value in just five days.
“It’s the most head-scratching, absurd policy move we’ve seen in years,” said Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities. “Apple is in the eye of the storm.”
CNBC technology reporter Kif Leswing calls it a “massive moment for Apple.”
“Even with all their efforts to diversify production, the company still depends on China, and now they’re facing tariffs from nearly every country they manufacture in,” Leswing said.
While the stock rebounded on Wednesday after Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for select nations, the broader uncertainty around Apple’s global manufacturing model hasn’t gone away. China tariffs remain at a staggering 145%.
“No company is more impacted by this tariff Armageddon than Apple,” Ives said.
Apple still assembles 90% of its iPhones in China, largely through its partnership with Foxconn. China also handles 80% of iPads and over half of Mac computers, according to Evercore ISI.
“Apple’s been trying to get ahead of this,” Leswing said. “They’ve been making iPhones in India, assembling Macs in Malaysia, sourcing from Vietnam, but those countries are now seeing tariffs too. That puts Apple in a really tough spot.”
India, Vietnam and Thailand were all key parts of Apple’s post-COVID diversification strategy. Under Trump’s new plan, imports from many of those countries face tariffs as high as 26% to 46%, although the president reduced most tariffs to 10% on Wednesday.
Still, the message from the White House is clear: Apple needs to make products in the U.S.
In theory, tariffs are meant to bring jobs and production back to the U.S. In practice, moving high-tech manufacturing out of China is neither fast nor cheap.
“If you want an iPhone made in the U.S. and you want it for $3,500, we should make it here,” said Ives. “If you want it for $1,000, you keep it in China.”
The iPhone 16 Pro Max currently starts at $1,199, but one UBS estimate shows that new tariffs could raise the price by $350. Erik Woodring of Morgan Stanley estimates Apple may need to increase prices across the board by 17% to 18% to cover the added cost.
Apple has started building some iPhones in India and iPads in Vietnam, but the company remains heavily reliant on China’s infrastructure, skilled labor force, and dense manufacturing network.
“It would take decades just to move 10% of Apple’s supply chain to the U.S.,” Ives said. “The global supply chain is built in Asia.”
As panic rippled through the markets, Apple kept quiet. The company has declined to comment publicly on the tariffs and has offered no updated guidance to suppliers or shareholders.
That stands in contrast to 2019, when CEO Tim Cook personally lobbied the first Trump administration to exempt iPhones from a previous round of tariffs, and succeeded. This time, no carve-outs have been announced.
“It’s kind of a cipher right now, what Tim Cook is cooking up in Cupertino,” said Leswing. “They’ve said very little.”
According to reporting from 9To5Mac, Apple has started modeling out different tariff scenarios and even chartered at least five planes in late March to stockpile products before tariffs took effect.
Analysts say Apple’s options are limited in the short term. The company is expected to delay price hikes until its next product cycle, likely with the iPhone 17, but that could impact demand in a cooling smartphone market.
Apple already faces pressure over its slow rollout of artificial intelligence features and stagnating hardware innovation. If the tariffs remain in place, or escalate further, the ripple effects could be massive.
“This could throw the U.S. into a self-inflicted recession,” Ives said.
So far, investors are watching closely for signs of a shift in strategy or a more forceful response from Apple leadership.
“Apple is the poster child for the trade war,” said Leswing. “And right now, they’re not saying much at all.”
Watch the video to understand how tariffs are shaking Apple’s supply chain and what it could mean for your next iPhone.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers the keynote for the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference (GTC) at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, U.S. March 18, 2025.
Brittany Hosea-Small | Reuters
Technology stocks were on pace for a winning week Friday on the heels of a volatile stretch spurred by ongoing tariff uncertainty and economic fears.
The Nasdaq Composite has jumped nearly 6% this week despite a wild few sessions and is on pace for its best week since November. The index was up nearly 2% Friday.
Megacap technology stocks have bounced this week despite the recent turbulence.
Other technology stocks have also joined in on the week-to-date rally. Palantir is up more than 17%, while Fortinet and Applovin have jumped at least 11%. Oracle and Salesforce have added about 2% and 4%, respectively.