Trump Expresses Fondness For TikTok As App’s Future In The U.S. Hangs In The Balance

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday once again indicated his desire to keep TikTok’s operations in the U.S. alive, ahead of a crucial week for the future of the popular social media platform in the country.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump shared an infographic purporting to show the high engagement his own content has on the application. The graphic did not cite sources for any of its claims.

“Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” Trump wrote.

Trump tried to ban TikTok during his first term in office, but has since changed his stance. In June, he launched his own account on the site.

The president-elect has expressed his opposition to a bill, signed into law by President Joe Biden, that threatens to ban the platform nationwide unless TikTok divests its Chinese ownership by Jan. 19. Trump told CNBC last year that a ban would only benefit Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

As the Jan. 19 deadline looms, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case on Friday to determine whether the law is unconstitutional, as TikTok argues.

Last month, a federal appeals court upheld the law, rejecting TikTok’s claims that the legislation runs afoul of the First Amendment. It also denied the company’s request to halt enforcement of the possible ban.

Meanwhile, in an amicus brief filed on behalf of Trump in late December to the Supreme Court, his lawyer D. John Sauer said Trump opposes the ban “at this juncture,” and asked the court to pause a possible ban until after Trump takes office to give him the opportunity to find a “political resolution.”

The Justice Department, however, opposed Trump’s request, noting that the president-elect did not take a position on the First Amendment question and that a pause would only be warranted if TikTok could show that it could succeed on the merits of the case.

“Petitioners have not made that showing here ― and the President-elect does not argue otherwise,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote last week on behalf of the DOJ.

TikTok, which reportedly has a user base of more than 170 million Americans, is owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance. Its Chinese ownership has long been a point of tension amid national security concerns, despite the company’s efforts to assuage such worries.

Following his win in November, Trump hosted TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago for a meeting. The contents of their discussion have not been made public.