How the Chinese platform’s popularity, and self-interest, took Trump from ban to embrace
BY ERIC CORTELLESSA
AS CONGRESS CONSIDERS LEGISLATION THAT could lead to a TikTok ban, the popular platform has found an unlikely ally: Donald Trump.
The former President has recently railed against a bill that would remove TikTok from U.S. app stores unless its Beijing-based parent company, Byte-Dance, sells its stake. To many, the move came out of left field. As President, Trump signed an Executive Order to ban TikTok unless an American company acquired it, alleging the Chinese government was using the video-sharing service to surveil millions of Americans. Challenged in federal court, the order never went into effect.
But now Trump sees some utility in helping to keep TikTok around, especially after President Joe Biden said he would sign the new congressional bill into law. “Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,” Trump told CNBC. “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”
Trump’s flip-flop has sparked allegations that he’s doing the bidding of a powerful donor with a stake in ByteDance. But part of his calculus, sources familiar with Trump’s thinking tell TIME, is the opportunity to make gains with younger voters by protecting a platform they love.
“He realizes that a lot of people would be upset if it were banned,” says a Trump operative working on the re-election effort. “Now Trump and Biden are on opposite sides of an issue where younger voters are clearly in favor of not banning TikTok.”
Trump has other reasons for the reversal. He recently struck a rapprochement with the antitax group Club for Growth, after it admitted defeat in an expensive effort to keep Trump from winning the nomination. “We’re back in love,” Trump told a gathering of its donors, per Politico, soon after meeting with one of its benefactors, billionaire Jeff Yass. The group opposes the TikTok bill, mirroring the position of Yass, whose investment company owns 15% of ByteDance. To boost the effort, Club for Growth hired Trump loyalist Kellyanne Conway to advocate for TikTok on the Hill.
Trump also fears the legislation would strengthen one of his nemeses: Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Trump resents the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, for donating $400 million in 2020 to help governments facilitate mail voting, a system Trump baselessly maligns as rife with fraud. Trump and his allies further accuse the company of suppressing co
