After Donald Trump won the US presidency last week, tech CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. publicly praised the president-elect.

A name was clearly missing: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chewing.

Its absence was notable given that of all major tech companies, TikTok faces the most immediate and existential threat from the US government. In April, the president Joe Biden signed a law which demands that Chinese ByteDance sell TikTok by January 19. If ByteDance does not comply, internet hosting companies and app store owners such as Apple and Google will be barred from supporting TikTok, effectively banning it in the United States.

Trump’s return to the White House, however, could provide a lifeline for Chew and TikTok.

Although both Republicans and Democrats supported Biden’s TikTok ban in April, Trump expressed opposition to the ban during his candidacy. Trump acknowledged national security and data privacy concerns related to TikTok in a March interview with CNBC.Scream box“, but he also said “there’s a lot of good and a lot of bad” with the app.

Trump also took advantage of TikTok’s fragile future in the United States to encourage people to vote against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

“We’re not doing anything with TikTok, but the other side is going to shut it down, so if you like TikTok, go out and vote for Trump,” the president-elect said in September. job on its Truth Social service.

Since his election, Trump has not publicly discussed his plans for TikTok, but Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNBC that the president-elect will “keep his promises.”

“The American people re-elected President Trump with a resounding majority, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,” Leavitt said in a statement.

Trump’s rhetoric on TikTok began to change after the president-elect met in February billionaire Jeff YassRepublican megadonor and major investor in Chinese social media app.

Yass’ trading company, Susquehanna International Group, owns a 15% stake in ByteDance, while Yass retains a 7% stake in the company, worth about $21 billion, NBC and CNBC. reported in March. That month was also reported that Yass co-owned the company that merged with Trump’s parent company Truth Social.

If ByteDance does not sell TikTok by the January deadline, Trump could potentially call on Congress to repeal the law or he could introduce “more selective enforcement” of the law that would essentially allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States without incur sanctions. said Sarah Kreps, a professor of government at Cornell University. “Selective enforcement” would amount to police officers not always enforcing every instance of jaywalking, she said.

At TikTok, Chew has been silent since Trump’s victory, just as he had been before Election Day.

The Chinese company may take a neutral approach and a wait-and-see strategy for now, said Long Le, a Chinese business expert and associate professor at Santa Clara University.

Le said it was difficult to predict what Trump would do.

“He’s also against the grain; that’s what makes it unpredictable,” Le said. “He can say one thing, and the next year he’ll change his mind.”

TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

“Facebook has been very bad for our country”

When it comes to social media apps, Trump’s campaign comments suggest he’s more concerned about his TikTok rival, Meta.

In his March interview with “Squawk Box,” Trump said Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, posed a much bigger problem than TikTok. He also said a ban on TikTok would only benefit Meta, who he called an “enemy of the people.”

“Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections,” Trump said.

But Trump’s negative views on Meta may have changed after the CEO’s comments Mark Zuckerberg over the past few months, Cornell’s Kreps said.

Zuckerberg describe photo of Trump raising his fist after a failed assassination attempt in July as “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” And after Trump’s victory, Zuckerberg congratulated him: adage he looked forward to working with the president-elect and his administration.

“My feeling, as Trump’s armchair psychologist, is that he really likes people who sing his praises, and so his view on Zuckerberg and Meta, I guess, has changed,” Kreps said. “He could then simply revert to his American economic nationalism and say, ‘Let’s protect American industry and continue the China ban.’ »

Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

Maintaining support for banning TikTok could also win Trump political favor with lawmakers concerned about China’s global political and trade influence, said Milton Mueller, a professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy.

“I don’t see him scoring any big political points by defending TikTok,” Mueller said, noting that few lawmakers, like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., have opposite the ban.

Even if Trump does provide a lifeline to TikTok, it’s unclear what damage it would do to his administration because many politicians are reluctant to publicly criticize him, Le said.

“They’re not going to challenge him because he has so much power,” Le said.

Since the launch of its TikTok account in June, Trump amassed more than 14 million followers. Given his familiarity with social media, Trump may not want to make a decision that would cause him to lose the public attention and influence he has gained on the platform, Le said.