US President-elect Donald Trump filed a brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban TikTok the day before his January 20 inauguration if it is not sold by its Chinese owner, ByteDance.
Trump’s legal team wrote, “Given the novelty and complexity of this case, the court should consider staying the statutory deadline to grant more breathing space to address these issues.” This would allow Trump “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution.”
Trump was fiercely opposed to TikTok during his 2017-21 first term and tried in vain to ban the video app on national security grounds.
Similar to political rivals, the Republican expressed worries that the Chinese government might access the data of US TikTok users or alter what they see on the app.
The video-sharing app’s popularity among youth had also alarmed US officials, who claimed that its parent company was beholden to Beijing and that the app was being used to disseminate propaganda. Both the company and the Chinese government denied these accusations.
Trump demanded that a US corporation purchase TikTok and that the government contribute to the sale price. His successor, Joe Biden, went one step further and signed legislation banning the app for the same reasons.
Trump has now, however, reversed course.
Last week, Trump stated during a press conference that he has “a warm spot” for TikTok and that his administration would investigate the app and the possible ban.
Earlier this month, the president-elect met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mara-Lago residence in Florida.
Recently, Trump told Bloomberg he had changed his mind about the app: “Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m for TikTok because you need competition.”
“If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram—and that’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg.”
Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg and part of his Meta Tech empire, was among the social media networks that banned Trump after attacks by his supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
