TikTok and Trump: A Tenuous Relationship

By Gram Slattery

(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump indicated on Sunday that he favored allowing TikTok to retain its operations in the United States for at least a little while, citing the billions of views he received on the platform during his presidential campaign.

Trump's remarks at a conservative gathering in Phoenix, Arizona, signal his opposition to a potential ban on TikTok in the U.S.

In April, the U.S. Senate passed a law requiring TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app due to national security concerns. TikTok's owners are attempting to have the law overturned, with the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear their case. If the court rules against ByteDance and no divestment takes place, the app could face an effective ban in the United States by January 19, just one day before Trump’s inauguration.

Trump’s plan to reverse the TikTok divestiture order remains unclear, especially since the Senate passed it overwhelmingly.

"I think we're going to have to start thinking because, you know, we did go on TikTok, and we had a great response with billions of views, billions and billions of views," Trump remarked to attendees at AmericaFest, an annual conservative gathering.

He described a chart showing TikTok's viewership performance as “a record” and considered keeping the platform operational. Trump met with TikTok's CEO on Monday and expressed a “warm spot” for the app due to his campaign's success on it.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has maintained that Chinese control of TikTok is a continual national security threat, a view supported by most U.S. lawmakers. TikTok contends that the Justice Department mischaracterizes its connections to China, insisting that its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the U.S. on cloud servers managed by Oracle Corp, with content moderation decisions for American users made domestically.