The boss of the social network TikTok will be present at Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony, at the invitation of his team, several American media reported on Thursday, a few hours before a possible ban on the platform in the United States.
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When contacted by AFP, the company did not immediately respond.
According to the New York TimesShou Chew is among the guests of honor, who will be seated alongside Donald Trump’s relatives and high-ranking officials. Other tech leaders will also be there, mainly Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
Congress has given TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese group ByteDance, until Sunday to sell its jewel, failing which the application will be banned in the United States.
The law plans, if executed, to oblige internet providers and application stores to prevent TikTok from being downloaded after the deadline.
American elected officials justified the vote on this law by fears of seeing the data and content of American users exploited by the Chinese authorities, suspected of using the platform as a spying tool.
TikTok and ByteDance have always refuted having granted access to the social network’s data to the Chinese government and assured that they never received a request to this effect.
According to the website The Information, TikTok would be ready to go further and remove the “app” from the internet as of Sunday, which would make it inaccessible even for users who had previously downloaded it.
ByteDance has so far systematically refused to sell TikTok, even if several American investors have positioned themselves, first and foremost businessman Frank McCourt, ready to put $20 billion on the table.
TikTok appealed to the Supreme Court in December to invalidate the law. The decision from the highest American court is expected any day now.
President-elect Donald Trump asked the senior judges to postpone their decision, saying he was able to find a favorable outcome to the case, which would preserve TikTok.
“We are going to put in place measures to prevent TikTok from turning off the lights” in the United States, assured Thursday, on the Fox News channel, the Republican elected to the House of Representatives Mike Waltz, appointed Security Advisor national by Donald Trump.
“The law allows for a postponement if a transaction remains possible,” explained the elected official from Florida. “This will give President Trump time to keep TikTok running.”
For Mike Waltz, the future head of state intends to preserve the social network while resolving questions relating to possible access by Chinese authorities to the data of American users of TikTok.
