Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
By Gram Slattery
(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump indicated on Sunday that he favors allowing TikTok to continue operating in the United States for a short period of time, saying it received billions of views on social media during his presidential campaign.
Trump’s comments before a group of conservative supporters in Phoenix, Arizona, were one of the strongest signs yet against TikTok’s exit from the US market.
The US Senate passed legislation in April requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to remove the app, citing national security concerns.
TikTok’s owners want the law to be overturned, and the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. But if the court does not give a decision in favor of ByteDance and there is no separation, the program could be banned in the United States on January 19, one day before Trump takes office.
It is not clear how Trump will end the TikTok divestiture plan, which passed overwhelmingly in the Senate.
“I think we’re going to start thinking because, you know, we went to TikTok, and we had a great response with billions and billions and billions of views,” Trump told the crowd at AmericaFest, this year. A meeting organized by the group Conservative Turning Point.
“They brought me a chart, and it was a drawing, and it was very beautiful to look at, and when I looked at it, I said, ‘Maybe we should keep him for a little while’,” he said.
Trump met with the CEO of TikTok on Monday. Trump said at a press conference the same day that he had a “hot spot” for TikTok because of his campaign’s success on the app.
The Department of Justice has said that China’s control of TikTok threatens national security, a position supported by many US lawmakers.
TikTok says the Justice Department misrepresented the social media app’s contract with China, saying its content engine and user data are stored in the United States on cloud servers operated by Results Oracle Corp (NYSE:), where regulatory decisions affecting US users are made in the United States.
