The chief govt of TikTok plans to attend President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration and has been invited to sit down ready of honor on the dais, the place former presidents, relations and different essential friends historically are seated, two individuals conversant in the plans stated Wednesday.
The invitation to the chief, Shou Chew, went out from the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, the individuals stated, talking on the situation of anonymity to debate Monday’s inauguration. Mr. Chew will be part of tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk on the occasion; Jeff Bezos has additionally been invited.
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese language firm ByteDance, declined to remark.
Mr. Trump’s assist for TikTok marks a surprising reversal from 2020, when he tried throughout his first time period to dam the app in the USA and drive its sale to American firms. He warmed as much as the corporate final yr, notably after he and his marketing campaign surged in recognition on TikTok throughout final yr’s election.
The Trump administration’s embrace of Mr. Chew is critical because the app teeters on the point of demise in the USA. Congress handed a legislation final yr saying that ByteDance needed to promote TikTok to a non-Chinese language firm or face a ban in the USA as of Jan. 19, citing nationwide safety issues. TikTok has been playing for the higher a part of a yr that it may defeat the legislation in courts. Extra just lately, it has set its sights on aiming to achieve one other resolution with the Trump administration to keep away from an outright sale. The Supreme Courtroom is about to rule on the legislation within the coming days.
Mr. Trump has vowed to avoid wasting the app in the USA as soon as he’s inaugurated on Jan. 20, although his choices for doing so are restricted. Authorized specialists have stated that the world the place Mr. Trump might probably intervene would contain part of the legislation that offers the president the authority to find out whether or not ByteDance has achieved sufficient to take away TikTok from Chinese language management.
Mr. Trump publicly changed his stance on TikTok final yr, quickly after he met with Jeff Yass, a Republican megadonor who owns a big share of ByteDance. Mr. Trump has stated they didn’t focus on the corporate. However Mr. Yass helped discovered the buying and selling agency Susquehanna Worldwide Group and is among the largest supporters of the anti-tax lobbying group Membership for Progress. It has employed Kellyanne Conway, a former senior counselor to Mr. Trump, to foyer for TikTok in Washington.
Mr. Trump has additionally repeatedly talked about how content material about him and his marketing campaign has carried out nicely on TikTok. His advisers noticed worth in participating with the positioning.
Mr. Trump met with TikTok executives on Dec. 16 at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, in keeping with an official conversant in the matter. Across the time of that assembly, TikTok officers instructed individuals in Mr. Trump’s orbit, and probably the president-elect himself, that Mr. Trump needs to be the one to determine TikTok’s destiny, in keeping with two individuals with data of the contacts between the 2 sides, who spoke on situation of anonymity. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Trump instructed reporters that he had a “heat spot” for TikTok and that he would look into the difficulty.
