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In his first statement since the Supreme Court upheld a law that could ban TikTok from the US on Sunday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew offered no insight into what would happen to the app in just a few days. Instead, he took the opportunity to appeal to President-elect Donald Trump.
“I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” Chew says in a video on the platform. “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a President who truly understands our platform — one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”
In discussing Trump’s TikTok views, Chew is speaking his language. After all, the incoming president is famous for keeping close tabs on his TV ratings, and recently declared he had a “warm spot” for TikTok after seeing how the platform played a role in his campaign. It’s TikTok’s most public attempt to butter Trump up before he takes over the Oval Office on Monday (one day after the ban takes effect), but Chew has already visited him at Mar-a-Lago and plans to attend his inauguration, along with several other tech CEOs.
Trump has previously declared his intention to save TikTok, but has not said how he’d do so. After Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, he asked the public to “respect it” and said, “My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation.” Earlier on Friday he said he’d spoken with China’s President Xi Jinping about TikTok among other things, calling it a “very good” call.
Chew’s statement seems to indicate that TikTok believes appealing to Trump is now its most promising path to remaining viable in the US. Even so, Trump’s options are somewhat limited. The most effective path, if he could achieve it, would be to somehow broker a deal to get ByteDance (with China’s allowance) to sell TikTok and comply with the law’s divestiture requirements. Otherwise, he could instruct his Justice Department not to enforce the ban, possibly through an executive order — but that might not be enough to reassure companies like Apple, Google, and Oracle that they won’t risk serious penalties continuing to provide service for TikTok.
In the meantime, we still don’t know how TikTok itself will handle the impending ban, which takes effect the day before Trump is sworn in. The company has reportedly planned to go dark in the US in that case. “Rest assured, we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives as your online home for limitless creativity and discovery, as well as a source of inspiration and joy for years to come,” Chew says. “More to come.”