- TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew could have a prominent spot for president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, according to the New York Times. Trump once sought to ban the app, but now he wants to save it.
TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew is planning to attend president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, a day after a ban on the wildly popular ByteDance owned app could take effect, according to the New York Times, which cited people familiar with the matter. Multiple outlets such as the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal have since reported his planned attendance. A source familiar with the planning confirmed to Fortune that Chew will be there.
If he indeed attends, Chew will have a reserved spot where family and former presidents typically sit along with the three richest men: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, whose attendance was previously reported by NBC.
TikTok did not immediately respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
If all goes as planned, it’ll be a reunion for the titans of tech. Chew once worked for Zuckerberg as an intern at Facebook before he became the Meta chief executive’s competition. Between the tech moguls, you pretty much have three social media empires: TikTok, Meta (so Facebook and Instagram), and X. There’s also Trump’s Truth Social media platform.
Fortune reported on the tensions of the past between the former and future president and the billionaires that’ll reportedly be near him during his inauguration. Trump once called Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, “Jeff Bozo.” And he once threatened to send Zuckerberg to prison for life. Musk, who has recently become Trump’s right-hand man, has also beefed with Zuckerberg and Bezos, from a cage match that never happened, to competition between his SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin. But Musk and Bezos exchanged kind regards today on X. Bezos wished Musk and the SpaceX team good luck, and Musk applauded Bezos and the Blue Origin team.
Trump has previously gone after Chew’s app, too. During his first term, Trump thought TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, was a threat to national security. He wanted to ban the app, but the ban didn’t materialize. Although, it could in a matter of days—only now, it appears Trump wants to save it. “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump recently said.
Last year, Congress passed a law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company or be banned in the United States. President Biden signed it, and the Supreme Court is set to rule on it by January 19.
The Washington Post reported today, citing people familiar, that Trump is considering an executive order once he’s sworn in that would suspend the enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale law for two to three months. It would buy his administration more time to find a solution. Not to mention, his pick for national security adviser Mike Waltz on Wednesday said Trump is looking for ways to “preserve” TikTok.
“If the Supreme Court comes out with a ruling in favor of the law, President Trump has been very clear: Number one, TikTok is a great platform that many Americans use and has been great for his campaign and getting his message out. But number two, he’s going to protect their data,” Waltz said.
“He’s a deal maker. I don’t want to get ahead of our executive orders, but we’re going to create this space to put that deal in place.”
