ByteDance
WASHINGTON (AP) â Amazon has put in a bid to purchase TikTok, a Trump administration official said Wednesday, in an eleventh-hour pitch as a U.S. ban on the platform is set to go into effect Saturday.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Amazon offer was made in a letter to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The New York Times first reported on the bid.
President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day gave the platform a reprieve, barreling past a law that had been upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court, which said the ban was necessary for national security.
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Under the law, TikTokâs Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance is required to sell the platform to an approved buyer or take it offline in the United States. Trump has suggested he could further extend the pause on the ban, but he has also said he expects a deal to be forged by Saturday.
Amazon declined to comment. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The existence of an Amazon bid surfaced as Trump was scheduled on Wednesday to meet with senior officials to discuss the coming deadline for a TikTok sale.
Although itâs unclear if ByteDance plans to sell TikTok, several possible bidders have come forward in the past few months. Among the possible investors are the software company Oracle and the investment firm Blackstone. Oracle announced in 2020 that it had a 12.5% stake in TikTok Global after securing its business as the appâs cloud technology provider.
In January, the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI presented ByteDance with a merger proposal that would combine Perplexityâs business with TikTokâs U.S. operation. Last month, the company outlined its approach to rebuilding TikTok in a blog post, arguing that it is âsingularly positioned to rebuild the TikTok algorithm without creating a monopoly.â
âAny acquisition by a consortium of investors could in effect keep ByteDance in control of the algorithm, while any acquisition by a competitor would likely create a monopoly in the short form video and information space,â Perplexity said in its post.
The company said it would remake the TikTok algorithm and ensure that infrastructure would be developed and maintained in âAmerican data centers with American oversight, ensuring alignment with domestic privacy standards and regulations.â
Other potential bidders include a consortium organized by billionaire businessman Frank McCourt, which recently recruited Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian as a strategic adviser. Investors in the consortium say theyâve offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for TikTokâs U.S. platform. Jesse Tinsley, the founder of the payroll firm Employer.com, says he too has organized a consortium and is offering ByteDance more than $30 billion for the platform. Wyoming small business owner Reid Rasner has also announced that he offered ByteDance roughly $47.5 billion.
Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance could share user data â such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers â with Chinaâs authoritarian government. TikTok said it has never done that and would not do so if asked. The U.S. government has not provided evidence of that happening.
Trump has millions of followers on TikTok and has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters.
During his first term, he took a more skeptical view of TikTok and issued executive orders banning dealings with ByteDance as well as the owners of the Chinese messaging app WeChat.
This story was originally published by The Associated Press.
President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a âpolitical resolutionâ to the issue.
The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by Jan. 19 while the government emphasized its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk.
âPresident Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Actâs deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,â said Trumpâs amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case and was written by D. John Sauer, Trumpâs choice for solicitor general.
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The argument submitted to the court is the latest example of Trump inserting himself in national issues before he takes office. The Republican president-elect has already begun negotiating with other countries over his plans to impose tariffs, and he intervened earlier this month in a plan to fund the federal government, calling for a bipartisan plan to be rejected and sending Republicans back to the negotiating table.
He has been holding meetings with foreign leaders and business officials at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida while he assembles his administration, including a meeting last week with TikTok CEO Shou Chew.
Trump has reversed his position on the popular app, having tried to ban it during his first term in office over national security concerns. He joined TikTok during his 2024 presidential campaign and his team used it to connect with younger voters, especially male voters, by pushing content that was often macho and aimed at going viral.
He said earlier this year that he still believed there were national security risks with TikTok, but that he opposed banning it.
The filings Friday come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. The law was signed by President Joe Biden in April after it passed Congress with broad bipartisan support. TikTok and ByteDance filed a legal challenge afterwards.
Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute, leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and âseeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.â
In their brief to the Supreme Court on Friday, attorneys for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argued the federal appeals court erred in its ruling and based its decision on âalleged ârisksâ that China could exercise controlâ over TikTokâs U.S. platform by pressuring its foreign affiliates.
The Biden administration has argued in court that TikTok poses a national security risk due to its connections to China. Officials say Chinese authorities can compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTokâs U.S. patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information.
But the government âconcedes that it has no evidence China has ever attempted to do so,â TikTokâs legal filing said, adding that the U.S. fears are predicated on future risks.
In its filing Friday, the Biden administration said because TikTok âis integrated with ByteDance and relies on its propriety engine developed and maintained in China,â its corporate structure carries with it risk.
This story was originally published by The Associated Press.
A federal appeals court panel on Friday upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the law, which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January, is constitutional, rebuffing TikTokâs challenge that the statute ran afoul of the First Amendment and unfairly targeted the platform.
âThe First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,â said the courtâs opinion. âHere the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversaryâs ability to gather data on people in the United States.â
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TikTok and ByteDance â another plaintiff in the lawsuit â are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term and whose Justice Department would have to enforce the law, said during the presidential campaign that he is now against a TikTok ban and would work to âsaveâ the social media platform.
The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, culminated a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China.
The U.S. has said itâs concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way thatâs difficult to detect.
However, a significant portion of the governmentâs information in the case has been redacted and hidden from the public as well as the two companies.
TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasnât provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated content for Beijingâs benefit in the U.S. They have also argued the law is predicated on future risks, which the Department of Justice has emphasized pointing in part to unspecified action it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government.
Fridayâs ruling came after the appeals court panel heard oral arguments in September.
Some legal experts said at the time that it was challenging to read the tea leaves on how the judges would rule.
In a court hearing that lasted more than two hours, the panel â composed of two Republican and one Democrat appointed judges â appeared to grapple with how TikTokâs foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to curtail potential influence from abroad on a foreign-owned platform.
The judges pressed Daniel Tenny, a Department of Justice attorney, on the implications the case could have on the First Amendment. But they also expressed some skepticism at TikTokâs arguments, challenging the companyâs attorney â Andrew Pincus â on whether any First Amendment rights preclude the government from curtailing a powerful company subject to the laws and influence of a foreign adversary.
In parts of their questions about TikTokâs ownership, the judges cited wartime precedent that allows the U.S. to restrict foreign ownership of broadcast licenses and asked if the arguments presented by TikTok would apply if the U.S. was engaged in war.
To assuage concerns about the companyâs owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to bolster protections around U.S. user data.
The company also argues the governmentâs broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. It has blamed the government for walking away from further negotiations on the agreement, which the Justice Department argues is insufficient.
Attorneys for the two companies have claimed itâs impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm â the platformâs secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divesture plan â would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content.
Still, some investors, including Trumpâs former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. Both men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to purchase TikTokâs U.S. business.
This week, a spokesperson for McCourtâs Project Liberty initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said unnamed participants in their bid have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital.
TikTokâs lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge brought by several content creators â for which the company is covering legal costs â as well as a third one filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc.
If TikTok appeals and the courts continue to uphold the law, it would fall on Trumpâs Justice Department to enforce it and punish any potential violations with fines. The penalties would apply to app stores that would be prohibited from offering TikTok, and internet hosting services that would be barred from supporting it.
ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming tops the list of Chinaâs richest people, according to the Hurun Research Institute, although many of them have seen their net worth plunge over the past year.
The institute, which publishes the annual Hurun China Rich List, found that the total wealth of entrepreneurs on the list this year was $3 trillion, down 10% from the previous year.
The number of billionaires based on their net worth in U.S. dollars was also down 142, to 753. Hurun tallied 1,185 billionaires since 2021.
âThe Hurun China Rich List has shrunk for an unprecedented third year running, as Chinaâs economy and stock markets had a difficult year,â said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun report.
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ByteDanceâs Zhang came in No. 1 for the first time this year, with a net worth of $49.3 billion, according to Hurun. ByteDance, which is the parent company of popular short-video platforms Douyin and TikTok, saw its revenue grow to $110 billion last year.
He is also the first individual born in the 1980s to top the Hurun list.
Bottled water magnate Zhong Shanshan fell to second place in 2024 with $47.9 billion, after his brand Nongfu Spring faced backlash in February when consumers accused it of disloyalty to China due to designs of its bottles.
The backlash wiped out billions in market value for Nongfu Spring.
Coming in third is Tencent founder Pony Ma with a net worth of $44.4 billion, as the gaming firm saw its revenues rise.
This yearâs China Rich List had just 54 new names added to the list, the lowest figure in two decades. New additions include Charlwin Mao and Miranda Qu Fang, the founders of Xiaohongshu, a social media and lifestyle platform popular with young users.
Chinaâs economy has lagged in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic as the country grapples with a real estate crisis and a volatile stock market. Policymakers are expected to unveil major stimulus measures to encourage consumption and spending, which have declined in recent months.
TikTok and parent company ByteDance have filed a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning recently-passed legislation requiring the Chinese company to sell the popular app or face a national ban, arguing that it violates the First Amendment.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in D.C. federal court, TikTok and Byte Dance called the law an âunprecedentedâ and unconstitutional action aimed at âsingling outâ one company and âsilencingâ more than 170 million Americans who use TikTok.
âFor the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban,â lawyers for the two companies wrote. âThere are good reasons why Congress has never before enacted a law like this.â
The lawsuit came just week after President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which requires that ByteDance either divest ownership of TikTok by Jan. 19 or face a national ban on the app. Proponents have argued that TikTok presents a national security threat because of its connections to the Chinese government and access to millions of Americans.
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In Tuesdayâs complaint, TikTok argued that such national security concerns were not sufficient to override the First Amendmentâs protections for free speech. The companyâs attorneys said lawmakers had failed to âarticulate any threat posed by TikTokâ and had cited only âspeculative concerns,â meaning they were making an âextraordinary and unconstitutional assertion of powerâ without clear reason.
âIf Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down,â TikTokâs lawyers wrote.
The new lawsuit came just days after TikTok â an increasingly influential part of the music industry ecosystem â reached an agreement with Universal Music Group to end a months-long standoff over rights to the music giantâs catalog.
In the new complaint, TikTok argued that it had already spent billions of dollars addressing the potential security risks cited by lawmakers, and had reached voluntary agreements with executive agencies like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to safeguard user data and the integrity against foreign government influence.
âCongress tossed this tailored agreement aside, in favor of the politically expedient and punitive approach of targeting for disfavor one publisher and speaker,â TikTokâs attorneys wrote. âCongress must abide by the dictates of the Constitution even when it claims to be protecting against national security risk.â
TikTok has already had success in court over U.S. efforts to ban the app. Citing the First Amendment, a federal judge in 2020 blocked former President Donald J. Trump from carrying out an executive order barring TikTok from app stores. And last year, a federal judge in Montana overturned a law in that state banning the app, ruling that legislation not only violated free speech, but also encroached on federal authority to regulate foreign relations.
President Joe Biden signed into law a national security bill on Wednesday that would force TikTok to be sold by its owner, ByteDance, or face a possible ban in the United States. Minutes later, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew responded with a video posted to the platform, declaring that ârest assured, we arenât going anywhere.â
âMake no mistake, this is a ban, a ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice,â Chew says in the video. âPoliticians may say otherwise. But donât get confused.â
The legislation signed by Biden gives ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, with a possible three-month extension if a sale is in progress. It would also keep ByteDance from controlling TikTokâs algorithm, which is credited with helping the app rocket in popularity.
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In his video, Chew suggests that freedom of speech will be the companyâs argument against the ban, saying that the bill becoming law is âa disappointing moment, but it does not need to be a defining one.
âItâs actually ironic because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom,â he continues. âTikTok gives everyday Americans a powerful way to be seen and heard.â
To that end, Chew also seeks to reassure users that the app is not going anywhere anytime soon and to rally its users to weigh in publicly on how important TikTok is to them:
âYou will still be able to enjoy TikTok like you always have, in fact, if you have a story about how TikTok impacts your life, we would love for you to share it to showcase exactly what weâre fighting for,â he says.
With the legislation now law, it is only a matter of time before TikTok sues to stop it, and the countdown clock has officially started. As of writing, barring a court-issued delay, ByteDance will have until Jan. 24, 2025, to find a buyer, or risk having the app wiped away from U.S. users.
âWe are confident, and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,â Chew says in the video. âThe facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail.â
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
The Senate passed legislation Tuesday night that would force TikTokâs China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers thatâs expected to face legal challenges and disrupt the lives of content creators who rely on the short-form video app for income.
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The TikTok legislation was included as part of a larger $95 billion package that provides foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel and was passed 79-18. It now goes to President Joe Biden, who said in a statement immediately after passage that he will sign it Wednesday.
A decision made by House Republicans last week to attach the TikTok bill to the high-priority package helped expedite its passage in Congress and came after negotiations with the Senate, where an earlier version of the bill had stalled. That version had given TikTokâs parent company, ByteDance, six months to divest its stakes in the platform. But it drew skepticism from some key lawmakers concerned it was too short of a window for a complex deal that could be worth tens of billions of dollars.
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The revised legislation extends the deadline, giving ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, and a possible three-month extension if a sale is in progress. The bill would also bar the company from controlling TikTokâs secret sauce: the algorithm that feeds users videos based on their interests and has made the platform a trendsetting phenomenon.
TikTok did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday night.
The passage of the legislation is a culmination of long-held bipartisan fears in Washington over Chinese threats and the ownership of TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans. For years, lawmakers and administration officials have expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data, or influence Americans by suppressing or promoting certain content on TikTok.
âCongress is not acting to punish ByteDance, TikTok or any other individual company,â Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell said. âCongress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our U.S. government personnel.â
Opponents of the bill say the Chinese government could easily get information on Americans in other ways, including through commercial data brokers that traffic in personal information. The foreign aid package includes a provision that makes it illegal for data brokers to sell or rent âpersonally identifiable sensitive dataâ to North Korea, China, Russia, Iran or entities in those countries. But it has encountered some pushback, including from the American Civil Liberties Union, which says the language is written too broadly and could sweep in journalists and others who publish personal information.
Many opponents of the TikTok measure argue the best way to protect U.S. consumers is through implementing a comprehensive federal data privacy law that targets all companies regardless of their origin. They also note the U.S. has not provided public evidence that shows TikTok sharing U.S. user information with Chinese authorities, or that Chinese officials have ever tinkered with its algorithm.
âBanning TikTok would be an extraordinary step that requires extraordinary justification,â said Becca Branum, a deputy director at the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology, which advocates for digital rights. âExtending the divestiture deadline neither justifies the urgency of the threat to the public nor addresses the legislationâs fundamental constitutional flaws.â
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat who voted for the legislation, said he has concerns about TikTok, but heâs also worried the bill could have negative effects on free speech, doesnât do enough to protect consumer privacy and could potentially be abused by a future administration to violate First Amendment rights.
âI plan to watchdog how this legislation is implemented,â Wyden said in a statement.
China has previously said it would oppose a forced sale of TikTok, and has signaled its opposition this time around. TikTok, which has long denied itâs a security threat, is also preparing a lawsuit to block the legislation.
âAt the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge,â Michael Beckerman, TikTokâs head of public policy for the Americas, wrote in a memo sent to employees on Saturday and obtained by The Associated Press.
âThis is the beginning, not the end of this long process,â Beckerman wrote.
The company has seen some success with court challenges in the past, but it has never sought to prevent federal legislation from going into effect.
In November, a federal judge blocked a Montana law that would ban TikTok use across the state after the company and five content creators who use the platform sued. Three years before that, federal courts blocked an executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump to ban TikTok after the company sued on the grounds that the order violated free speech and due process rights.
The Trump administration then brokered a deal that had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok. But the sale never went through.
Trump, who is running for president again this year, now says he opposes the potential ban.
Since then, TikTok has been in negotiations about its future with the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a little-known government agency tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns.
On Sunday, Erich Andersen, a top attorney for ByteDance who led talks with the U.S. government for years, told his team that he was stepping down from his role.
âAs I started to reflect some months ago on the stresses of the last few years and the new generation of challenges that lie ahead, I decided that the time was right to pass the baton to a new leader,â Andersen wrote in an internal memo that was obtained by the AP. He said the decision to step down was entirely his and was decided months ago in a discussion with the companyâs senior leaders.
Meanwhile, TikTok content creators who rely on the app have been trying to make their voices heard. Earlier Tuesday, some creators congregated in front the Capitol building to speak out against the bill and carry signs that read âIâm 1 of the 170 million Americans on TikTok,â among other things.
Tiffany Cianci, a content creator who has more than 140,000 followers on the platform and had encouraged people to show up, said she spent Monday night picking up creators from airports in the D.C. area. Some came from as far as Nevada and California. Others drove overnight from South Carolina or took a bus from upstate New York.
Cianci says she believes TikTok is the safest platform for users right now because of Project Texas, TikTokâs $1.5 billion mitigation plan to store U.S. user data on servers owned and maintained by the tech giant Oracle.
âIf our data is not safe on TikTok,â she said. âI would ask why the president is on TikTok.â
TikTok has returned to the bargaining table with Universal Music Group (UMG), but a fast-tracked Congressional bill that could result in the platform being sold, or, as a last result, banned in the United States may reach President Joe Bidenâs desk before those negotiations are finished. Â
A source familiar with the talks says Bytedance â the Chinese company that owns TikTok â has returned to the bargaining table with UMG after the label group pulled its music from the social media platform at the end of January citing its refusal to address three âcriticalâ issues: âappropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters,â âprotecting human artists from the harmful effects of AIâ and âonline safety for TikTokâs users.â Â
Itâs unclear whether any progress has resulted â neither UMG nor TikTok will comment â but ByteDance currently faces a more urgent, existential issue now that the Speaker of the House of Representatives has attached whatâs being called the TikTok national security bill to the foreign aid package for Ukraine and Israel that is expected to move quickly through Congress. The House may vote on it as early this weekend and the Senate is expected to act quickly. If it passes in both houses, President Biden has promised to sign it immediately. Â
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Officially titled The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the proposed legislation was drawn up after White House national security and intelligence leaders briefed House lawmakers on the potential dangers that TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans, poses to the nation. Â
What the TikTok National Security Bill Does
If Biden signs the bill into law, ByteDance will have approximately a year from its enactment â the original bill gave it just 90 days â to sell TikTok to a buyer in a country that the United States does not consider a foreign adversary. If ByteDance, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party and is subject to its government, refuses to divest itself of TikTok or does not meet the deadline, then the app could be banned from being downloaded or used in the United States.
Rick Lane, TikTok Coalition.org leader and child safety advocate, says the TikTok bill âis moving forward very quickly. The language between the House and Senate is so close â they are millimeters apart, and I think agreements are being made to bring them together. Unless something drastic happens, I donât see this billâs momentum slowing down, no matter whoâs on the other side. That is why adding it to the foreign aid bill makes sense.â
At a time when Congress is mired in ideological infighting, particularly among Republicans, the House of Representatives moved with remarkable speed to mark up and pass the bill and send it to the Senate. Â
Despite a deluge of calls and messages from TikTok users protesting the legislation, the House passed it, 352 votes to 65, on March 13 â less than a week after national security and intelligence officials held a classified briefing for an executive session of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A music industry source familiar with activity on Capitol Hill tells Billboard that, before the briefing started, âmembers and staffers devices were taken away, and the committee roomâs AV systems and the like were removed.â Following the morning briefing, the committee marked up the bill that afternoon and voted unanimously to advance it to the full House of Representatives.Â
A classified intelligence briefing was also held in the Senate and prompted similar remarks of concern. Republican senator from Missouri Eric Schmitt told Axios that the Chinese-controlled platformâs âability to spy is shocking.â Â
âWe donât know exactly what was briefed,â says the music industry source. âBut what is absolutely crystal clear is that whatever has been presented to Congress members by the intelligence community is clearly driving this. You donât see â particularly Congress members â reacting with that kind of dispatch and unanimity.âÂ
A âOnce-in-a-Lifetimeâ Alarm
âThis is really a once-in-a-lifetime kind of alarm,â the source adds. âPeople who have been around the Hill for decades donât remember there ever being this level of concern.â
An unclassified 2024 Annual Threat Assessment issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in February may offer a glimpse of these security concerns. The assessment reported that âChina is demonstrating a higher degree of sophistication in its influence activity, including experimenting with generative AI. TikTok accounts run by a [Peopleâs Republic of China] propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022.âÂ
In response, a TikTok spokesperson referred Billboard to its written response to the ODNI, dated March 15, which asserts that the social media platform âregularly takes action against deceptive behavior, including covert influence networks throughout the world, and has been transparent in reporting them publicly. TikTok has protected our platform through more than 150 elections globally,â the response continues, âand is continuing to work with electoral commissions, experts, and fact-checkers to safeguard our community during this historic election year.âÂ
In addition to the intelligence briefings, Billboard obtained a slide presentation that one Capitol Hill source says has been shown to staffers for over 40 senators. The presentation cobbles together previously published articles, analyses and reports about TikTokâs alleged dissemination of disinformation and propaganda to much of the same demographic that uses the app for music discovery. (According to a 2024 Pew Research Center report, 56% of U.S. adults 18 to 34 use the platform and 52% of the users in this age group have posted a video to the platform.) Â
âTikTok Is a News Organizationâ
As one tech policy expert says, âTikTok is a news organization. Trends are indicating that up to 40% of adults 18-to-29 will be getting their news from TikTok in 2024. Itâs their CNN or Fox News or MSNBC.â Â
One of the first slides, titled âTikTok Has Rapidly Evolved From an Entertainment to a News Platform, Enormously Expanding Its Influence on The U.S. Population,â includes a graph built from Pew Research Center data that shows 43% of TikTok users regularly got their news from the platform in 2023, nearly double the 22% that did so in 2020. Only X (59%) and Facebook (54%) were higher. And nearly a third of that 43% were adults under 30 years of age. Â
Although musicâs role in TikTokâs alleged dispersal of disinformation is not examined in the presentation, the tech policy expert says itâs definitely a factor. A 2023 report released by the rights management startup Pex in February revealed that 85% of TikTok videos contain music, more than YouTube (84%), Instagram (58%) and Facebook (49%), and the tech policy expert says that music played on the platform often functions as an emotional gateway to propaganda. Â
âThe power of music is what draws people to social interaction,â the source says. âTheyâre taking music that gets people excited and, for instance, following them with horrific videos â and the interaction of those data points creates this powerful tool to affect policy.â The expert adds that TikTokâs algorithm enables the platform to essentially tailor its approach to each user. âItâs no longer just one size fits all; the ability now is to take visual cues, music and sound and target each individual with what sets them off â and they can do that on a massive scale. Â
âThe argument in favor of TikTok is that Meta and Alphabet are collecting data from even more people, but they are not based in an adversarial country,â the expert continues. âThereâs another key difference as well. TikTok sends you videos that they think you are interested in no matter what. Most young people want to be influencers. In order to be an influencer on TikTok, you have to follow whatâs trending, so your video is blasted to more people. You tag along with feeds. In the policy realm, if they want to influence public policy, your view is going to be whatever direction that feed is going in.â
A TikTok spokesperson responds: âThere is absolutely no evidence to these assertions. We have clear rules prohibiting deceptive behaviors.â Â
âThey Deserve Itâ
The music industryâs view of the proceedings in Washington is mixed. The perspective of artists and songwriters is arguably best expressed by David Lowery, the artist rights activist and frontman for the bands Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, who also was one of more than 200 creators that, in early April, signed an open letter to tech platforms urging them to stop using AI âto infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.â
âThe rates TikTok pays artists are extremely low, and it has a history â at least with me â of using my catalog with no licenses,â Lowery says. âI just checked to make sure and there are plenty of songs that I wrote on TikTok, and I have no idea how they have a license for those songs.âÂ
As a result, Lowery says that while âIâm kind of neutral as to whether TikTok needs to be sold to a U.S. owner, the bill pleases me in a general way because I feel that theyâve gotten away with abusing artists for so long that they deserve it. I realize the bill doesnât punish them for doing that,â he continues, âbut thatâs why a lot of musicians feel they really deserve it.âÂ
The consensus among label executives is that TikTok is not going anywhere, but were the app banned in the United States, they wouldnât spill many tears. In early April, Billboard reported that two months after UMG pulled its music from TikTok, its market share and chart appearances had not been greatly affected. And though numerous UMG artists have devised workarounds to maintain a presence on TikTok, one senior label executive says, âWhen youâre looking at the competitive set for TikTok, you see a migration to YouTube, Instagram and Snap. And those platforms see a real opportunity, so theyâre starting to lean in. The absence of TikTok would just mean migration to other platforms and, frankly, because those platforms monetize better, even if you lose a significant chunk of your audience, youâre still going to make more money.â
$8.7 Million For Lobbyists
Capitol Hill sources say ByteDance has enlisted a small army of lobbyists to keep TikTok on U.S. mobile devices. In 2023, ByteDance spent $8.7 million on lobbyists, according to the nonprofit government transparency organization OpenSecrets. Thatâs almost double the $4.9 million it dropped in 2022, although a TikTok spokesperson attributes the year-to-year increase to âa unique, one-time higher expenditure in the third quarter of 2023 that reflects the vesting of Restricted Stock Units related to the launch of our U.S. buyback program.â (Data for 2024 lobbyist expenditures were not available at publication time.)Â
That 2023 outlay was the fourth-highest amount spent on lobbyists by a tech company that year, behind Meta ($19.3 million); Amazon.com (nearly $19.3 million) and Alphabet (almost $12.4 million). In 2019, ByteDance spent less than $1 million on lobbyists. Â
Lobbyists hired by ByteDance include Rosemary Gutierrez, the former deputy chief of staff for Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee â which will review the TikTok legislation before a floor vote is taken â and Kellyanne Conway, former senior counselor to President Donald Trump. Conway is reportedly considering joining Trumpâs reelection campaign, but last month, Politico reported that she was working for the conservative Club for Growth to lobby on TikTokâs behalf.  Â
One of the Club for Growthâs biggest donors is billionaire Jeffrey Yass, who owns 15% of ByteDance, which is reportedly worth roughly $40 billion. Yassâ trading firm, Susquehanna International Group, is also the largest institutional shareholder â 2% â of Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which merged with Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the former presidentâs Truth Social app, and took it public in late March. (The New York Times reported that itâs unclear if Susquehanna still owned the shares at the time of the IPO.)Â
Given Yassâ support of Trump, itâs not shocking that, after attempting to ban TikTok during his time in office, Trump has said on social media and in interviews that though he still considers TikTok a national security risk, he has reconsidered banning the platform. One reason he has cited is that such a move would benefit Meta and its social media app Facebook. Trump has made no secret of his enmity for Metaâs chairman/CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, which banned him in 2021. (Trump was reinstated in 2023.) Â
The Taylor Factor
The news last week that Taylor Swift had restored her Taylorâs Version songs to TikTok in the run-up to the April 19 release of her new album The Tortured Poets Department led to speculation that the superstar singer-songwriter â who has often spoken out for artistsâ rights â could be weaponized by TikTok in its standoff with UMG. In Washington, however, TikTok Coalition leader Lane says, âTaylor Swift being or not being on TikTok has never come up in any meeting Iâve been in on Capitol Hill.â He sees Swiftâs return to the app as âa business decisionâ thatâs no different than President Bidenâs and Congress membersâ presence on the app, or even UMGâs continued talks with TikTok. âIt doesnât diminish the strong bipartisan/bicameral support within Congress and the White House that TikTok is a clear and present danger to the U.S. national security and needs to be divested from ByteDance,â he says. Â
Trumpâs sway over the GOP has some on Capitol Hill predicting that passage of the TikTok National Security bill in concert with the foreign aid package is not a slam dunk. âItâs hard to say how itâs going to play on the Republican side,â says the music industry source familiar with the Capitol Hill proceedings. âBecause while theyâre feeling pressure from the former President on one hand to oppose the bill, they are also feeling heat from their constituents to support it.â Â
Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that he will put together an investor group to buy TikTok after the House passed a bill that would ban the popular video app in the U.S. if its China-based owner does not sell its stake.
During an interview on CNBCâs âSquawk Box,â Mnuchin, who served under President Donald Trump, said he had spoken âto a bunch of peopleâ about creating an investor group that would purchase the popular social media company. He offered no details about who may be in the group or about TikTokâs possible valuation.
âThis should be owned by U.S. businesses,â Mnuchin said. âThereâs no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China.â
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TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The House bill, passed by a vote of 352-65, now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear. Lawmakers in the Senate have indicated that the measure will undergo a thorough review. If it passes in the Senate, President Joe Biden has said he will sign it.
House lawmakers acted on concerns that TikTokâs current ownership structure is a national security threat. Lawmakers from both parties and administration officials have voiced concerns that TikTokâs parent company, ByteDance, could be compelled by Chinese authorities to hand over data on American users, spread pro-Beijing propaganda or suppress topics unfavorable to the Chinese government.
TikTok, for its part, has long denied that it could be used as a tool of Chinese authorities. The company insists it has never shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government and will not do so if asked. To date, the U.S. government also has not provided evidence that shows TikTok shared such information with authorities in China.
The White House had no immediate reaction Thursday to Mnuchinâs potential bid for TikTok.
âWeâre still focused on continuing to work, providing some technical support and assistance to Congress, as this bill, which just passed the House, moves on to the Senate,â White House national security spokesman John Kirby said when asked about whether the Mnuchin consortium could assuage the administrationâs national security concerns about TikTok.
âThere is an ongoing legislative process for that. We obviously want to see the Senate take it up swiftly and weâre focused on making sure weâre providing them the context and information we believe is important so that this bill can actually do and address the national security concerns that we have with respect to TikTok.â
The fight over the platform takes place as U.S.-China relations have shifted into strategic rivalry, especially in areas such as advanced technology and data security, seen as essential to each countryâs economic prowess and national security.
If passed and signed into law, the House bill would give ByteDance 180 days to sell the platform to a buyer that satisfies the U.S. government. It would also require the company to give up control of the TikTok algorithm that feeds users videos based off their preferences.
In addition to Mnuchin, some other investors, including âShark Tankâ star Kevin OâLeary, have voiced interest in buying TikTokâs U.S. business. But experts have said it could be challenging for ByteDance to sell the platform to a buyer who could afford it in a few months.
Big tech companies are best positioned to make such a purchase, but they would likely face intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators, which Mnuchin emphasized.
âI donât think this should be controlled by any of the big U.S. tech companies. I think there could be antitrust issues on that,â he said during the interview. âThis should be something thatâs independent so we have a real competitor. And users love it, so it shouldnât be shut down.â
He also said the app would need to be rebuilt in the U.S. with new technology.
In many ways, social media companies have become battlegrounds for partisan disagreements about how to control disinformation while protecting free speech. Mnuchinâs effort to buy TikTok comes as Trump and his allies have long complained about what they see as social media muzzling conservative voices.
Trump himself has voiced opposition to the House bill, saying that a ban on TikTok would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to lambast over his 2020 election loss. Some other Republicans who oppose the bill say the U.S. should simply tell Americans about the security concerns with TikTok, but let them decide if they want to use the platform.
Meanwhile, some Democrats have expressed concern about singling out one company when other social media platforms also collect vast amounts of data on users. Opponents of the bill also say it would disrupt the lives of content creators who rely on the platform for income and run afoul of the First Amendment, which protects free speech.
This isnât the first time a TikTok sale has been in play.
When Mnuchin was Treasury secretary, the Trump administration brokered a deal in 2020 that would have had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok on national security grounds.
The deal would have also made Oracle responsible for hosting all TikTokâs U.S. user data and securing computer systems to ensure national security requirements are satisfied. Microsoft also made a failed bid for TikTok that its CEO, Satya Nadella, later described as the âstrangest thingâ he had ever worked on.
Instead of congressional action, the 2020 arrangement was in response to a series of executive actions by Trump targeting TikTok.
But the sale never went through for a number of reasons. Trumpâs executive orders got held up in court as the 2020 presidential election loomed. China also imposed stricter export controls on its technology providers.
The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesnât sell, as lawmakers acted on concerns that the companyâs current ownership structure is a national security threat.
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The bill, passed by a vote of 352-65, now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.
TikTok, which has more than 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.
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The lawmakers contend that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTokâs consumers in the U.S. any time it wants. The worry stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to assist with intelligence gathering.
âWe have given TikTok a clear choice,â said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. âSeparate from your parent company ByteDance, which is beholden to the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party), and remain operational in the United States, or side with the CCP and face the consequences. The choice is TikTokâs.
House passage of the bill is only the first step. The Senate would also need to pass the measure for it to become law, and lawmakers in that chamber indicated it would undergo a thorough review. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said heâll have to consult with relevant committee chairs to determine the billâs path.
President Joe Biden has said if Congress passes the measure, he will sign it.
The House vote is poised to open a new front in the long-running feud between lawmakers and the tech industry. Members of Congress have long been critical of tech platforms and their expansive influence, often clashing with executives over industry practices. But by targeting TikTok, lawmakers are singling out a platform popular with millions of people, many of whom skew younger, just months before an election.
Opposition to the bill was also bipartisan. Some Republicans said the U.S. should warn consumers if there are data privacy and propaganda concerns, while some Democrats voiced concerns about the impact a ban would have on its millions of users in the U.S., many of which are entrepreneurs and business owners.
âThe answer to authoritarianism is not more authoritarianism,â said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif. âThe answer to CCP-style propaganda is not CCP-style oppression. Let us slow down before we blunder down this very steep and slippery slope.â
Ahead of the House vote, a top national security official in the Biden administration held a closed-door briefing Tuesday with lawmakers to discuss TikTok and the national security implications. Lawmakers are balancing those security concerns against a desire not to limit free speech online.
âWhat weâve tried to do here is be very thoughtful and deliberate about the need to force a divestiture of TikTok without granting any authority to the executive branch to regulate content or go after any American company,â said Rep. Mike Gallagher, the billâs author, as he emerged from the briefing.
TikTok has long denied that it could be used as a tool of the Chinese government. The company has said it has never shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities and wonât do so if it is asked. To date, the U.S. government also has not provided any evidence that shows TikTok shared such information with Chinese authorities. The platform has about 170 million users in the U.S.
The security briefing seemed to change few minds, instead solidifying the views of both sides.
âWe have a national security obligation to prevent Americaâs most strategic adversary from being so involved in our lives,â said Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y.
But Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said no information has been shared with him that convinces him TikTok is a national security threat. âMy opinion, leaving that briefing, has not changed at all,â he said.
âThis idea that weâre going to ban, essentially, entrepreneurs, small business owners, the main way how young people actually communicate with each other is to me insane,â Garcia said.
âNot a single thing that we heard in todayâs classified briefing was unique to TikTok. It was things that happen on every single social media platform,â said Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.
Republican leaders have moved quickly to bring up the bill after its introduction last week. A House committee approved the legislation unanimously, on a 50-vote, even after their offices were inundated with calls from TikTok users demanding they drop the effort. Some offices even shut off their phones because of the onslaught.
Lawmakers in both parties are anxious to confront China on a range of issues. The House formed a special committee to focus on China-related issues. And Schumer directed committee chairs to begin working with Republicans on a bipartisan China competition bill.
Senators are expressing an openness to the bill but suggested they donât want to rush ahead.
âIt is not for me a redeeming quality that youâre moving very fast in technology because the history shows you make a lot of mistakes,â said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
In pushing ahead with the legislation, House Republicans are also creating rare daylight between themselves and former President Donald Trump as he seeks another term in the White House.
Trump has voiced opposition to the effort. He said Monday that he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk but is opposed to banning the hugely popular app because doing so would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to lambast over his 2020 election loss.
As president, Trump attempted to ban TikTok through an executive order that called âthe spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the Peopleâs Republic of China (China)â a threat to âthe national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.â The courts, however, blocked the action after TikTok sued, arguing such actions would violate free speech and due process rights.