TikTok CEO to attend Trump inauguration as US shutdown deadline looms

2CAD7XK TikTok app on a phone screen and Donald Trump. TikTok is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance.

Photo: Alamy

TikTok’s CEO is reportedly attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday as the company nears a looming U.S. shutdown one day before the event.

Shou Zi Chew has been invited to join guests on the platform during the inauguration, Reuters reported.

“With more than 170 million American users and, according to Bernstein analysts, about $20 billion of estimated revenue in 2025, TikTok is overwhelmingly popular with young people and advertisers,” the outlet reported.

“The short-video platform plans to shut U.S. operations of its social media app on Sunday, when a federal ban is set to take effect, barring a last-minute reprieve, people familiar with the matter have said,” it continued.

Trump officially asked the Supreme Court to extend the company’s deadline to divest from ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, RSBN previously reported. The court heard the case on Jan. 10.

In a nonpartisan amicus brief filed on December 27, Trump’s team wrote, “On January 20, 2025, President Trump will assume responsibility for the United States’ national security, foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.”

The brief argues that “this case presents an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national-security concerns on the other,” and that as Chief Executive, Trump “is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means.”

Trump’s brief points out that he “also has a unique interest in the First Amendment issues raised in the case.”

“Through his historic victory on November 5, 2024, President Trump received a powerful electoral mandate from American voters to protect the free-speech rights of all Americans—including the 170 million Americans who use TikTok,” the brief argues.

“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary also recently announced that he wants to buy the social media app TikTok, but needs Trump’s help to make it possible. O’Leary shared his pitch for the Chinese-owned company during an appearance on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”

“Trump will be who we have to work with to close the deal in the months ahead. So I wanted to let him know, as well as others in his cabinet, that we’re doing this, and we’re going to need their help,” O’Leary said, according to The Wrap.

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