The chief executive of TikTok plans to attend President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration and has been invited to take a seat able of honor on the dais, the place former presidents, relations and different necessary company historically are seated, two folks aware of the plans mentioned on Wednesday.
The invitation to the chief, Shou Chew, went out from the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, the folks mentioned, 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, in accordance with two folks with information of the planning.
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese language firm ByteDance, declined to remark.
Mr. Trump’s assist for TikTok marks a shocking 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, significantly after he and his marketing campaign surged in recognition 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 nicely on TikTok. His advisers noticed worth in participating with the location and have mentioned it helped him attain youthful voters and those that tuned out mainstream media.
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 regulation 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 considerations. TikTok has been playing for the higher a part of a yr that it may defeat the regulation in courts. Extra lately, it has set its sights on aiming to achieve another solution with the Trump administration to keep away from an outright sale. The Supreme Courtroom is about to rule on the regulation within the coming days.
Mr. Trump has vowed to save lots of the app in the USA as soon as he’s inaugurated on Jan. 20, although his choices for doing so are restricted. Authorized consultants have mentioned that the world the place Mr. Trump may most probably intervene would contain part of the regulation that provides the president the authority to find out whether or not ByteDance has carried out 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 major share of ByteDance. Mr. Trump has mentioned 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 Development. It has employed folks with ties to Mr. Trump, reminiscent of 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, in accordance with an official aware of the matter. Across the time of that assembly, TikTok officers advised folks in Mr. Trump’s orbit, and presumably the president-elect himself, that Mr. Trump must be the one to determine TikTok’s destiny, in accordance with two folks with information of the contacts between the 2 sides, who spoke on situation of anonymity. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Trump advised reporters that he had a “heat spot” for TikTok and that he would look into the difficulty.
