"Easier to close the deal with Elon" — Internet reacts to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew reportedly being invited to Trump's inauguration

On Thursday, January 16, The New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman tweeted that TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, plans to attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday and has been invited to sit in a position of honor on the dais.

"The head of Tik-Tok has been invited to sit at the dais at the president's inauguration and is expected to attend, per two people with knowledge of the situation," her tweet read.

Haberman's tweet comes a day after the US Supreme Court was supposed to rule on the TikTok ban but didn't. Last Friday, the court heard arguments over whether the federal law — which requires the platform to separate from its parent company or be banned — is in violation of the First Amendment.

Per Forbes, the law is expected to take effect on Sunday, January 19, unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's presidential inauguration is scheduled for Monday, January 20.

Haberman's tweet has gone viral and has received over 396K views. Referring to Elon Musk's 2022 purchase of another social media platform, Twitter, one person commented:

"Easier to close the deal with Elon"

Some netizens spoke in favor of protecting the app, claiming that all social media platforms leaked their data, making it no more of a threat than others.

"Protect TikTok. It’s no more of a threat than all the other platforms we use that leak our data constantly," commented an X user.

"American capitalism is failing because regulators refuse to stop monopolies and oligopolies... this will be one more When Elon Musk buys TikTok," posted another.

"Right next to Musk, am I right?," wrote a third one.

Others speculated that Trump could be an investor behind the app, which is why they were trying to save the platform.

"President Xi accepted the invite after all? Good for him," replied another X user.

"Trump has a billionaire donor who’s an investor in tik tok that’s why he now wants to save it." added another.

"But will the chairman of OnlyFans be there?," one commented.

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Trump wants to keep TikTok up and running

According to USA Today, Donald Trump said he has a "warm spot" for the app, as it generated billions of views for his campaign before last year's presidential elections.

In December 2024, Trump urged the Supreme Court to pause enforcement of the law banning the platform. He claimed he had received a mandate from the voters to protect their free-speech rights.

Although Trump is trying to defend the app, he has tried to ban TikTok in the past. During his last term in office, Trump issued an executive order in August 2020 claiming the platform was capturing mass amounts of information about Americans, making it vulnerable to the Chinese government.

"These risks are real. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information − potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage," the order read.

A federal judge blocked the order at the time, and the Biden administration later dropped it. However, as Biden proposed a ban this time, Trump emerged to stand in opposition. The 78-year-old said about the app in a CNBC interview:

"Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it. There are a lot of users, a lot of good, and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok."

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The app and its parent company, ByteDance, await the Supreme Court's decision on Sunday regarding the platform's ban. If the ban takes effect, Apple and Google will no longer offer the app for download to new users on their respective app stores.