After a tumultuous year filled with anxiety and a legal battle over its future in the US, TikTok may have just had a phone call from the man who was once its biggest enemy: Donald Trump.
The president-elect, who tried to shut down social media last time he was in the White House, has repeatedly promised in his latest campaign to oppose a ban on the short-form video app, which could happen as soon as midterms. -In January if the company loses the ongoing court case in Washington.
For months, TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, have been at loggerheads with the US over a federal law forcing them to cut ties on national security grounds or cease operations in one of the world’s largest markets. The measure, signed by President Joe Biden in April, gives ByteDance nine months to divest its stake, with a possible three-month extension if the sale goes ahead. If that happens, the deadline could be extended to the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
The companies say the split is impossible, and the law, if upheld, would force them to close on January 19, just a day before Trump’s second inauguration. Lawyers for both sides have asked the appeals court reviewing the case to issue a decision on December 6. The losing side is expected to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, which has a majority following the common law and may decide to take it up, possibly withdrawing. the process is even longer.
When reached for comment, Trump’s transition team did not provide details on how Trump plans to carry out his promise to “save TikTok,” as he said in a Truth Social post in September while urging people interested in the platform to vote for him. . But Caroline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the transition team, said in a statement that she plans to see it through.
“The American people re-elected President Trump with great enthusiasm, giving him the mandate to follow through on the promises he made on the campaign trail,” Leavitt said. “You will help me.”
In an interview in March with CNBC, Trump said he still believes that TikTok poses a threat to national security but he opposed shutting it down because doing so would help his rival, Facebook, continue to complain about his loss in the 2020 election. He also denied that he changed his mind on the matter because of Jeff Yass, a ByteDance investor Trump, at the time, said he had met “very briefly.” He said Yass “never mentioned TikTok” in their meeting.
Still, ByteDance—and groups affiliated with Yass—have been trying to use their influence. Lobbying disclosures show that this year, ByteDance paid veteran lobbyist and former Trump campaign aide David Urban $150,000 to lobby lawmakers in Washington in favor of TikTok. The company also spent more than $8 million on internal lobbyists and another $1.4 million on other lobbying firms, according to the nonprofit OpenSecrets.
At that time, in March, Politics reported that Kellyanne Conway, a former top Trump aide, was being paid by the conservative Yass Club for Growth to represent TikTok in Congress. A spokesperson for the organization said Conway was hired as a consultant to run the polls. Conway and Urban did not respond to requests for comment. TikTok, which has long denied it is a national security risk, declined to comment.
If the courts uphold the law, it will fall to Trump’s Justice Department to enforce it and punish any violations with fines. The fines will apply to app stores that will not be allowed to offer TikTok, and internet hosting services that will be banned from supporting it. Leah Plunkett, who teaches at Harvard Law School, said that from her reading of the law, the attorney general must investigate violations of the law but can decide whether or not to take these companies to court and force them to comply.
Trump can do other things to prevent TikTok from disappearing.
He could either issue an executive order to end the ban—which Plunkett believes would be unconstitutional—or ask Congress to repeal the law. That will require support from Congressional Republicans who have aligned themselves with Trump but also support hopes of getting TikTok out of the hands of the Chinese company.
In a statement to the AP after the election, Republican Representative John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said Trump’s “long-standing concerns” about TikTok are consistent with the legal requirement for divestment.
“The Trump Administration will have a unique opportunity to sell American to take the platform,” he said.
ByteDance, however, has previously said it has no intention of selling the platform despite interest from other investors, including former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Analysts say the company is highly unlikely to sell a proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see in the app. That means that even if TikTok is sold to a qualified buyer, it is likely to be a shell of its current self and will need to be rebuilt with new technology.
Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute, said it’s also possible that Trump could take the issue back to the drawing board and direct his administration to negotiate a new deal with TikTok.
TikTok said in 2022 it will present the Biden administration with a draft agreement that will strengthen user protections and give them more oversight of the company’s operations in the US. But executives have argued in court filings in recent months that it will be challenging to enforce the deal because of the platform’s size and technical complexity.
Trump hasn’t known about the latest intelligence on the matter for several years and is likely to change his mind — and renege on a campaign promise — once he does, Kreps said.
Plunkett, Harvard Law professor and author of Sharing: Why We Should Think Before Talking About Our Children Onlinehe said that if he were advising TikTok, he would advise it to come up with a severance plan that is as legal and favorable to the company as possible, noting, “There’s a lot of uncertainty about what the Trump administration can do. What to do.”
—By Hallelujah Hadero, Associated Press
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