TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing titled “TikTok: How Congress Can Protect America’s Data Privacy and Protect Children from Internet Harms,” as lawmakers scrutinize the Chinese-owned video-sharing app on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 23, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend President Trump’s inauguration and will sit on the dais next door other technical directors including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, according to NBC News sources.
It is also expected to be present Google CEO Sundar Pichai, a Trump transition official, told NBC News.
NBC News reached out to representatives for TikTok and Google for comment, and TikTok declined, and Google did not immediately respond to a request.
The New York Times first reported Chew’s arrival, citing two people familiar with the plans.
The news about the new guests comes a few days before TikTok’s upcoming ban in the US, who might see the application darken in stores like Google Play and Apple’s app store if the Chinese-owned company doesn’t sell its American subsidiary to an American company.
Until now, ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, has refused to sell, and Supreme Court has not made a final decision since hearing arguments last Friday on legislation aimed at banning TikTok.
President-elect Donald Trump filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court before last Friday’s argument, asking the court to block the injunction in favor of the president-elect finding a political solution, though it’s unclear exactly how that would be implemented.
Trump has shifted his stance on TikTok before, ultimately seeing the app as an effective campaign tool that helped push him into the White House in November.
President Joe Biden’s administration is also considering ways to keep TikTok available in the U.S. if the scheduled ban goes into effect Sunday, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
