TikTok, staring down the barrel of a ban, got a chance to throw one last Hail Mary to save itself. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the arguments from TikTok and its parent company ByteDance on why it should not be banned within US borders. The hearing is set for January 10, just 9 days before the curtains fall on the short-form video app.

TikTok has asked the high court to temporarily block the implementation of a law that would ban the app unless it is sold to an American company. The court did not immediately issue the emergency relief but will give the platform a chance to make its case before its ban takes place on January 19. The hope is, per The New York Times court watcherso SCOTUS will make a decision before the sell-or-die deadline for TikTok hits.

The hearing represents the last chance for TikTok to get its head out of the guillotine. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed earlier this yearhas given ByteDance nine months to reach an agreement to divest itself of TikTok over concerns that the platform is run by a company with ties to the Chinese government. A sale didn't happen—and ByteDance apparently did never looking for buyers—so the company is fully focused on legal challenges.

So far, those have fallen flat. TikTok took a challenge to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and argued that banning the app would represent a violation of the First Amendment, as it would restrict the right of Americans to express themselves on TikTok. . The court panel of three judges that gives a big thumbs downstating that the First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States, and that the ban represents the government acting "solely to protect that freedom from a foreign enemy nation and to limit the enemy's ability to collecting data on people in the United States.”

So it's up to the Supreme Court for TikTok, where it's expected to find friendly judges—or at least those sympathetic to the idea of ​​delay. At this point, maybe that's all TikTok needs. The company's CEO Shou Zi Chew traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump earlier this week and plead his case for blocking the ban. Trump seems at least open to this idea, in part because he believes the platform played a part in his election victory.

Does it matter that Trump is the man who the ball starts rolling on a ban in the first place? Of course not. It was years ago when he thought that TikTok would make him sick. TODAY Trump thinks TikTok is great, actually. And all the company needs is a couple more days for Trump to settle back in the White House and issue some sort of intervention ban.

At this point, even getting the Supreme Court to say it needs more time to hear arguments would be a victory for TikTok because it could pass the buck to Trump. Time is not on TikTok's side, but it also doesn't need more of it to potentially save itself.