Trump meets TikTok CEO, Supreme Court asked to block app ban

TikTok on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block a law that could effectively ban the popular social media app in the United States by Jan. 19.

On the same day, President-elect Donald Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, NBC News confirmed.

TikTok wants the Supreme Court to first consider its appeal of that law, which would require its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the app by that date or force Google and Apple to stop supporting TikTok on their platforms in the U.S.

The request came three days after the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., refused to delay the effect of its ruling upholding the law, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

The appeals court in that ruling cited national security concerns raised by members of Congress who backed the law.

Trump earlier Monday told reporters, “We’ll take a look at TikTok,” when he was asked about the potential ban.

“You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said, pointing to his electoral performance among young voters in November.

Trump in his first term in the White House tried to ban the app, but during the recent campaign said he opposed the law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden.

In its request Monday to the Supreme Court, TikTok’s lawyers wrote, “Congress has enacted a massive and unprecedented speech restriction. TikTok is an online platform that is one of the Nation’s most popular and important venues for communication.”

The company’s attorneys argued there is a “strong public interest” in having the Supreme Court review the appeals court ruling upholding the law in question.

“The Act will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,” the filing said. “This, in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern.”

In a statement posted on its X social media account, TikTok Policy said, “The Supreme Court has an established record of upholding Americans’ right to free speech.”

“Today, we are asking the Court to do what it has traditionally done in free speech cases: apply the most rigorous scrutiny to speech bans and conclude that it violates the First Amendment,” the statement said.

The same post said estimates show that if TikTok is banned, small businesses that use the app will lose more than $1 billion in revenue in just one month, and creators will lose nearly $300 million in earnings in one month.