Donald Trump, the president-elect, is set to meet with TikTok CEO Shou Chew on Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to someone familiar with the plans. The meeting comes as Trump seems to have warmed up to TikTok, even calling the popular app a reason he connected with young voters in the recent election.
Interestingly, this is quite a shift from Trump’s stance a few years ago when, during his first term, he tried to ban TikTok entirely. But now, on the campaign trail, he’s promising to “save” the app. Exactly how he plans to do that is unclear, though, since Congress already passed a law to push TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app. This law had bipartisan support, meaning leaders from both political parties agreed on it.
To fight the upcoming ban, TikTok has taken action of its own. On Monday, the company filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for more time to work things out before the ban officially kicks in.
The pressure on TikTok started earlier this year when President Joe Biden signed a law in April, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. It was part of a huge $95 billion foreign aid package approved by Congress. The law gives TikTok an ultimatum: sell the app to a non-Chinese company or get banned in the U.S. Lawmakers are worried that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, might have ties to the Chinese government, which could lead to security risks.
TikTok has about 170 million users in the U.S., so a ban would be a big deal. Lawmakers are even warning tech giants like Apple and Google to prepare to remove TikTok from their app stores by January 19. Some have written directly to TikTok’s CEO, urging him to find a new buyer quickly to avoid the ban.
The challenge, though, is that selling TikTok isn’t easy. The app’s success largely depends on its algorithm — the tech that figures out which videos people love and keeps them scrolling. Chinese officials have already said they won’t allow ByteDance to sell that algorithm, making the process even trickier and more expensive.
The TikTok CEO isn’t the only big name Trump is meeting this week. On Tuesday, he’s set to sit down with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, and on Wednesday, he’ll meet Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The meeting with Bezos follows a recent report that Amazon is planning to donate $1 million to Trump’s upcoming inauguration fund. Both meetings will also take place at Mar-a-Lago.
It’s clear that Trump’s discussions with these business leaders — including TikTok — could have a big impact. Whether TikTok can find a solution to stick around in the U.S. or face a ban will be something millions of users are watching closely.
