TikTok CEO to attend Trump’s inauguration as app’s fate hangs in the balance
TikTok CEO Shou Chew may not have a social media platform to run by Sunday but he is still invited to, and expected to attend, Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on Monday in Washington D.C.
Chew is the latest tech executive to be offered a spot on the dais to watch Trump be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, according to the New York Times. He is joining Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla CEO and presidential adviser Elon Musk, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
The invitation to Chew is somewhat ironic given he will be in the presence of the lawmakers who voted to pass legislation that forces TikTok to be sold to a U.S.-based company or risk becoming inoperable on U.S. servers.
In addition to the lawmakers, he will also be celebrating Trump – the man who initially advocated for a TikTok ban and threatened to issue an executive order during his first term that would force the platform to divest from ByteDance or be banned.
But the relationship between Trump and Chew seems to have warmed since the president-elect promised to “save” TikTok and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause enforcement of the ban so he can work out a deal.
The Supreme Court has yet to issue a ruling determining whether or not the sold-or-be-banned legislation violates the First Amendment or place an injunction on it. They have until Sunday, January 19 to do so before the ban takes effect.
The Independent has asked TikTok for comment.
Trump reversed his stance on TikTok last year after meeting with a Republican megadonor who owns a significant share of ByteDance, according to the New York Times. Trump denied the two discussed the company.
Since then, the president-elect has come to enjoy the platform – successfully using it to engage with younger voters during the presidential campaign. Those close to Trump told the New York Times that he has repeatedly mentioned how his content performed well and helped him reach a younger audience.
In his request to the Supreme Court, lawyers for Trump specifically mentioned that “President Trump and his rival both used TikTok to connect with voters during the recent Presidential election campaign, with President Trump doing so much more effectively.”
Trump has privately considered issuing an executive order on his first day in office that would not enforce the TikTok ban, according to reports. But it’s unclear if Trump has the authority to do so. Refusing to enforce legislation would be an attempt to bypass bipartisan congressional action.
Regardless of TikTok’s standing in the U.S., Chew’s invitation reaffirms the recent surge of tech executives trying to get into the good graces of the incoming president.
Bezos and Zuckerberg have both donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and made policy changes within their companies that seem to favor Trump. At Meta, Zuckerberg announced they would cease their fact-checking policy and rely on community input, in a similar fashion as X. At The Washington Post, the newspaper that Bezos owns, staff were told not to endorse a presidential candidate and that it would begin implementing a political bias meter at the top of news articles.
Musk, who owns Tesla and Space X, has become the most obvious example of a tech executive cozying up to the incoming president. Musk has been adopted as a presidential adviser and helped Trump interview potential staffers and cabinet picks.
So far, Chew has not adopted a close role to Trump but given he may need his help to keep TikTok alive in the U.S., he could develop a much closer relationship to the president-elect.