TikTok CEO Is Trump’s Latest Billionaire Buddy

Technology Policy Brief #125 | By: Mindy Spatt | January 24, 2025

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Summary

Predictably, a law banning TikTok was in effect for only a few hours on January 19.  The Biden administration’s case against the app as a security threat was weak, but that’s not why the ban didn’t materialize.  Even before taking office, Donald Trump rescinded it.  He will try to broker a deal for a partial sale of the app, most likely to one of his billionaire buddies.

Analysis

Whether you like TikTok or not- I don’t- the swiftness with which Donald Trump, even before taking office, ignored the decisions of Congress and the Supreme Court doesn’t bode well for the future.

Trump took advantage of a giant loophole in the law passed by Congress requiring Tik Tok to sell part ownership or shut down, allowing the company a 90-day reprieve if negotiations for such a sale were in progress.  TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has repeatedly said it is not open to such a sale.  

Despite that, Trump granted a sale reprieve for 75 days, parting ways with some of his right-wing republican allies.  Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, urged the ban to go forward. In a press statement on January 17, he said “ByteDance and its Chinese Communist masters had nine months to sell TikTok before the Sunday deadline. The very fact that Communist China refuses to permit its sale reveals exactly what TikTok is: a communist spy app.  On the 19th another release, jointly issued with Senator Pete Ricketts (R-Nebraska) stated that once the law has taken effect, there was “no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date.”  

In his first term, Trump tried to ban TikTok and another Chinese-owned app, WeChat, but lawsuits succeeded in stopping those efforts.  Still, when a ban started gaining traction in Congress during the Biden administration, Trump didn’t get on board.  Commentators have speculated this gained him points with young voters, but do TikTok aficionados follow the news that closely or care that much?  More likely Trump realized his support of the company could be profitable.  

Byte Dance has so far been silent on Trump’s proposal for a shared ownership model.  But TikTok CEO Shou Chew has visited Trump at Mar A Lago and was proudly front and center at his inauguration.  On January 19 TikTok praised the (then) former president and credited him with its triumphant return after 15 hours offline.  All users saw this message: “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!,” 

The brief shutdown sparked some whining among users, but also some relief.  Comments included:

I kind of internally panicked for a bit before a wave of calm descended.

I already knew how addictive, toxic, and wasteful it can be, but would still find myself mindlessly scrolling. This was a forced reckoning of sorts.

I’m going to delete it, stop consuming short-form content, and limit my consumption of long-form content.

A few potential buyers have been mentioned in press reports.  One is billionaire businessman and real estate mogul Frank McCourt, former owner of the LA Dodgers, who, along with Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary, made an offer.   

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has also announced his interest and is putting together an investment group.  When Mnuchin was Treasury Secretary he tried to force the sale of a large stake in TikTok to US companies. 

Several other names have been floated as possible buyers, including Tesla CEO and Trump BFF Elon Musk.  Others who would likely be able to afford to buy the app, estimated to be worth well over $100 billion, might include Trump donors and crypto billionaires the Winklevoss brothers or perhaps Mark Zuckerberg who has lambasted TikTok’s Chinese ownership as a security threat even while Meta’s apps have routinely sold user data to foreign companies, including Chinese ones. 

Read more on the real dangers of TikTok below.

Resources:

• TikTok executives know about app’s effect on teens, lawsuit documents allege, by Bobby Allyn, Sylvia Goodman and Dara Kerr, National Public Radio,  Oct.11, 2024
• The Dangers of TikTok That Are Worth Your Attention By Johanna Neeson, Readers Digest, May 17, 2024
• US: TikTok Ban Won’t Solve Big Tech Harms, Amnesty International, Jan. 17, 2025

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