TikTok CEO expected to attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration: reports


TikTok’s CEO is expected to attend president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, according to multiple US media outlets, as some Democratic lawmakers and the incoming administration try to help the Chinese-owned app avert a ban in the US.

Chew Shou Zi, who held a private meeting with Trump on December 16, will join several other technology executives who have confirmed their attendance, including X’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

The TikTok CEO will have a front-row seat at the inauguration next to Trump’s family and former senior American officials, according to The New York Times.

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The ceremony is scheduled a day after the deadline for ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to divest its US operations to a third non-Chinese party. If no such sale transpires by then, the ban would take effect.

The law requiring the platform to either sell or face a ban was passed by the US Congress and signed by US President Joe Biden in April, owing to concerns that the Chinese government could collect Americans’ data or manipulate content on the app.

TikTok supporters live stream outside the US Supreme Court during oral arguments in the case in Washington on Friday. Photo: Getty Images/TNS

TikTok awaits a ruling by the US Supreme Court on the ban’s constitutionality. The platform and some content creators argued that the law violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. TikTok boasts more than 170 million users in the US.

The Supreme Court was expected to release its ruling on Tuesday this week, but none came.

“Given the extraordinary nature of this case – the expedited hearing and briefing schedule, the impending statutory deadline and so on – I would not be surprised if the court dropped an opinion online any time before the ban takes effect,” said Mark Jia, a Georgetown University law professor.

During last week’s oral arguments at America’s highest court, a majority of the nine justices posed questions focusing on US national security tied to foreign ownership rather than voiced concerns about free speech.

If the court does not intervene by Saturday, the app is scheduled to go dark on Sunday.

Trump has promised to save TikTok, which he said held a “warm spot” in his heart. In an amicus brief submitted to the court, the president-elect argued the ban should be halted so that he could find a resolution through “political means”.

Meanwhile, Chew plans to attend a “victory rally” for Trump in Washington’s Capital One Arena on Sunday ahead of the swearing-in, The Washington Post reported.

TikTok did not immediately reply to a request for confirmation that its CEO would attend the inauguration.

Trump’s invitation to Chew lays bare a split within the Republican Party over whether TikTok should continue to remain in business in the US without severing its ties to its Chinese parent.

US congressman Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican whom Trump has nominated to serve as the next national security adviser, told Fox News on Thursday that his team “will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark ... as long as a viable deal is on the table”.

Such a move would buy “Trump time to keep TikTok going”, said Waltz.

Trump was even considering issuing an executive order to suspend the ban-or-sale law for 60 to 90 days and allow his administration time to develop a solution, according to The Washington Post on Wednesday.

A group of Democratic lawmakers, led by US senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, has emerged to support extending Sunday’s deadline and working with Trump officials on the matter.

Earlier this week, Markey introduced a bill to extend the deadline for the forced sale by 270 days. However, the effort was killed on Wednesday by Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton when brought for consideration for unanimous consent on the Senate floor.

“Let me be crystal clear: there will be no extensions, no concessions and no compromises for TikTok,” Cotton said. “TikTok is a harmful app that endangers our national security and poisons our children.”

Markey, joined by fellow senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, sent a letter to Biden on Thursday asking him to trigger a 90-day extension as allowed in the statute forcing the app’s sale.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Massachusetts senator repeatedly stated that the US intelligence community had “no information” that ByteDance had manipulated content on TikTok to support the Chinese government.

Chew’s presence in Washington on Monday would be helpful in putting a “human face” on the impact of the app being gone, Markey added.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer also came out on Thursday in support of an extension, explaining he was not opposed to TikTok itself but rather “a Chinese company that is in cahoots with the Chinese Communist Party owning” it.

“Unfortunately, TikTok as it exists today has too many security risks that cannot be ignored,” he said.

Despite those reservations, Schumer believed “it’s clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, of so many influencers who have built up a good network of followers”.

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