TikTok CEO plans to attend Trump inauguration

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The TikTok CEO plans to attend President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration and has been invited to sit in an honored position at the podium where former presidents, family members and other important guests traditionally sit, two people familiar with plans said said Wednesday.

The invitation to the chief executive, Shou Chew, came from Trump Vance’s inauguration committee, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Monday’s inauguration. Mr. Chew will join Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk on stage with other tech executives at the event, according to two people familiar with the planning.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, declined to comment.

Mr. Trump’s support for TikTok marks a stunning turnaround from 2020, when in his first term he tried to block the app in the US and force its sale to American companies. He warmed to the company last year, especially after he and his campaign rose in popularity on TikTok during last year’s election.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly talked about how content about him and his campaign has performed well on TikTok. His advisers saw the value in engaging with the site and have said it helped him reach younger voters and those who tuned out the mainstream media.

The Trump administration’s embrace of Mr. Chew is important as the app teeters on the brink of death in the US. Congress passed a law last year that said ByteDance had to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States starting Jan. 19, citing national security concerns. TikTok has been betting for more than a year that it can defeat the law in the courts. More recently, it has aimed to reach another settlement with the Trump administration to avoid an outright sale. The Supreme Court must decide on the law in the coming days.

Mr. Trump has promised to keep the app in the US when he is inaugurated on January 20, although his options to do so are limited. Legal experts have said that the area where Mr. The most likely way Trump could intervene would involve a section of the law that gives the president the authority to determine whether ByteDance has done enough to remove TikTok from Chinese control.

Mr. Trump publicly changed his position on TikTok last year, shortly after he met with Jeff Yass, a Republican megadonor who owns a significant stake in ByteDance. Mr. Trump has said they did not discuss the company. But Mr. Yass helped found the trading firm Susquehanna International Group and is a major supporter of the anti-tax lobby group Club for Growth. It has employed people associated with Mr. Trump, such as Kellyanne Conway, a former top adviser to the president-elect, and Republican adviser David Urban, to lobby for TikTok in Washington.

Mr. Trump met with TikTok executives on Dec. 16 at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, according to an official familiar with the matter. Around the time of that meeting, TikTok officials told people in Mr. Trump’s orbit, and possibly the president-elect himself, that Mr. Trump would be the one to decide TikTok’s fate, according to two people with knowledge of contacts between the two sides who spoke on condition of anonymity. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Trump told reporters that he had a “warm spot” for TikTok and that he would look into the issue.