TikTok

Trump meeting with TikTok CEO at Mar-a-Lago as company asks Supreme Court to intervene in fight over federal ban

Author: Kaitlan Collins and Devan Cole, CNN Source: CNN:::

December 16, 2024 at 17:55

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew departs from the Russell Senate Office Building on March 14, 2024, in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

CNN — President-elect Donald Trump is meeting with the head of TikTok at his Mar-a-Lago Club Monday afternoon, a person familiar with the meeting told CNN, as the social media giant is asking the Supreme Court to wade into a court fight over use of the app in the United States.

The pre-scheduled meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Chew is believed to be the first time the men have met since Trump’s electoral victory in November, another person told CNN. Chew, who was seen at Trump’s Florida resort in early December, has been trying to meet with Trump since he was elected, and is just the latest meeting the president-elect is holding with top executives from some of America’s largest tech companies.

Just hours before, TikTok asked the conservative high court to weigh in on the legal dispute over a controversial law requiring that the platform be sold to a new, non-Chinese owner or be banned in the United States. That measure is set to take effect January 19.

After the January deadline, US app stores and internet services could face hefty fines for hosting TikTok if it is not sold. The president, under the legislation, may issue a one-time extension of the deadline.

Trump on Monday suggested he might take a different approach with the popular platform but has not detailed what that approach might look like.

“You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points and there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it,” Trump said earlier Monday at a wide-ranging press conference – his first since the election. (Trump lost 18-29-year-old voters to Vice President Kamala Harris by 11 points, according to CNN’s 2024 exit polls.)

The platform is one step closer to facing a ban in a matter of weeks, unless it can convince Chinese parent-company ByteDance to sell and find a buyer. ByteDance has previously indicated it will not sell TikTok.

TikTok wants Supreme Court to freeze law

TikTok’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court thrusts the justices into a high-profile fight between Congress, which has cited national security concerns over China’s control of the app, and the platform’s users and executives, who argue that the ban violates the First Amendment.

A federal appeals court unanimously upheld the ban in a ruling earlier this month that said the government had a national security interest in regulating the platform in the United States. If the Supreme Court does not intervene, the ban would take effect a day before Trump takes office.

The appeal landed on the high court’s emergency docket, which critics call the “shadow docket,” days after the DC Circuit Court of Appeals turned down the company’s request for the law to be temporarily blocked, handing another loss to the company in its bid to stave off enforcement of the ban next month.

Attorneys for TikTok are asking the Supreme Court to temporarily block the ban to give the company time to ask the justices to review their challenge to it. If the justices agree, the law would, at a minimum, remain on hold until the court decides whether it will hear the case.

CNN’s John Fritze contributed to this report.