According to media reports, US President-elect Trump met with TikTok CEO Zizi Zhou at his Mar-a-Lago resort in the United States on December 16 local time.
In a significant development, President-elect Donald Trump recently met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. This meeting comes at a critical juncture as TikTok faces a potential ban in the United States unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests its interest by January 19, 2025.
TikTok has taken legal action by filing an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court to delay the ban. The company argues that the ban would cause irreparable harm to both the company and its millions of users in the U.S. This legal battle highlights the ongoing tension between the U.S. government and Chinese-owned tech companies over data privacy and national security concerns.
Interestingly, Trump, who had previously attempted to ban TikTok during his first term, expressed a "warm spot" for the app during the meeting. He credited TikTok for helping him connect with and win over young voters, showcasing the app's significant influence on social media and political landscapes.
The outcome of this meeting and the Supreme Court's decision will be pivotal in determining TikTok's future in the U.S. As the situation unfolds, it remains to be seen how TikTok will navigate these challenges and what impact this will have on its user base and operations in the country.
"TikTok has a warm place," Trump said at a press conference, adding, "We will take a look at TikTok and a possible ban."
At the same time, TikTok announced on social media that it had filed an emergency request with the US Supreme Court, seeking to block the "sell or ban" bill.
TikTok and ByteDance have called on the US Supreme Court to rule by January 6 on their request to delay implementation of the "sell or ban" law, according to the filing.
TikTok said in a statement: "The U.S. Supreme Court has a strong track record of upholding Americans' right to free speech. Today, we ask the U.S. Supreme Court to do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and find them in violation of the First Amendment." TikTok said the "sell or ban" bill would result in more than 170 million Americans being subjected to "unprecedented and massive censorship" on January 19, and it estimated that small businesses on TikTok "will lose more than $1 billion in revenue in just one month, and creators will lose nearly $300 million in revenue" if the ban is not ended.
