The chief executive 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, members of the family and different necessary friends historically are seated, two folks conversant in the plans stated on Wednesday.
The invitation to the chief, Shou Chew, went out from the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, the folks stated, talking on the situation of anonymity to debate the inauguration on Monday. Mr. Chew will join Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk on the dais, together with different tech executives on the occasion, based on two folks with data of the planning.
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese language firm ByteDance, declined to remark.
Mr. Trump’s help for TikTok marks a surprising reversal from 2020, when he tried throughout his first time period to dam the app in the US and power its sale to American firms. He warmed as much as the corporate final yr, significantly after he and his marketing campaign surged in reputation on TikTok throughout final yr’s election.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly talked about how content material about him and his marketing campaign has carried out properly on TikTok. His advisers noticed worth in partaking with the location and have stated it helped him attain youthful voters and people who tuned out mainstream media.
The Trump administration’s embrace of Mr. Chew is critical because the app teeters on the point of loss of life in the US. 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 US as of Jan. 19, citing nationwide safety considerations. TikTok has been playing for the higher a part of a yr that it may well defeat the legislation in courts. Extra lately, it has set its sights on aiming to succeed in another solution with the Trump administration to keep away from an outright sale. The Supreme Court docket is ready to rule on the legislation within the coming days.
Mr. Trump has vowed to avoid wasting the app in the US as soon as he’s inaugurated on Jan. 20, although his choices for doing so are restricted. Authorized consultants have stated that the realm the place Mr. Trump might probably intervene would contain part of the legislation that provides the president the authority to find out whether or not ByteDance has finished 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 without doubt one of the greatest supporters of the anti-tax lobbying group Membership for Progress. It has employed folks with ties to Mr. Trump, comparable to Kellyanne Conway, a former prime adviser to the incoming president, and the Republican adviser David City, to foyer for TikTok in Washington.
Mr. Trump met with TikTok executives on Dec. 16 at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, based on an official conversant in the matter. Across the time of that assembly, TikTok officers instructed folks in Mr. Trump’s orbit, and probably the president-elect himself, that Mr. Trump needs to be the one to resolve TikTok’s destiny, based on two folks 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.
