SOCIAL NETWORKING

TikTok Seeking Help From Musk Ahead of Trump Takeover

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden signed a law banning TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t divest itself of the platform by mid-January.

TikTok is looking to Elon Musk for insight into the controversial app’s future ahead of Donald Trump’s coming administration. Musk, who is one of the president-elect’s closest confidants, also owns rival platform X. According to the Wall Street Journal, Shou Chew, chief executive of the popular video sharing app, began reaching out to Musk in recent weeks. He and and executives at TikTok’s parent company, Chinese tech giant ByteDance, see the Tesla CEO as a potential point of contact in the White House amid TikTok’s impending ban in the United States due to national security concerns. While sources familiar with the conversations say Chew has not explicitly asked Musk how to keep TikTok operating in the U.S., he has engaged with the billionaire on topics like Trump’s potential tech policy. ByteDance executives are reportedly cautiously optimistic about the conversations. Earlier this year, however, President Joe Biden signed a law banning TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t divest itself of the platform by mid-January. In May, TikTok filed a federal lawsuit arguing the new law violates the free-speech rights of its users.