Some Senate members are having trouble wrapping their heads around reports that President-elect Donald Trump has invited TikTok’s CEO to join him on the dais during his inauguration as the 47th president, according to CNN anchor Jim Sciutto.
Sciutto posted to social media Thursday, “Senators say they are baffled by the announcement that TikTok’s CEO will be attending President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next week. ‘I don’t get it,’ said Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, noting that Trump had raised concerns with Chinese government influence with TikTok. ‘80% of the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, agreed that TikTok is a huge national security concern. I can’t think of a potentially more powerful propaganda tool,’ he said.”
The New York Times reported that chief executive “Shou Chew plans to attend President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration and has been invited to sit in a position of honor on the dais, where former presidents, family members and other important guests traditionally are seated, two people familiar with the plans said on Wednesday.”
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Anonymous sources told reporters Maggie Haberman and Sapna Maheshwari that the invitation was sent from the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. Chew is expected to sit at a place of honor with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the dais.
Senators may be confused at Trump’s magnanimity because TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which has been ordered to divest by Jan. 19 or be banned from operating in the U.S. A new report Thursday claimed that TikTok is planning to completely shut down its U.S. operations by Sunday if the Supreme Court upholds the ban at the end of the week.
“Trump has increasingly signaled a desire to save the social media platform TikTok, despite overwhelming bipartisan concerns — once espoused by Trump himself — that it serves as a potential espionage tool for China,” The Washington Post reported.
While in office in 2020, Trump signed an executive order that effectively banned the use of the social media platform in the United States. He’s had a change of heart, since, however, and in March 2024, Trump reversed his position. Trump now says that despite concerns over privacy and alleged Chinese spying, the First Amendment issues involved with banning the platform are “sweeping and troubling.”