Mr. Trump's growing antipathy towards Mr. Zuckerberg and the advocacy and lobbying efforts of several former administration and campaign officials with ties to the Republican billionaire who owns large sums of money in TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, It helps clarify the former president's stance on video-sharing apps. Trump tried to ban TikTok during his time in office, but courts blocked the effort in the final stages of his presidential term. But he has recently voiced opposition to a rapidly advancing House bill targeting the app. The former president argued last week that a ban on TikTok would primarily help Zuckerberg and Mehta, who also publishes short videos on multiple apps. He appeared to reiterate his opposition to the ban in an interview with CNBC on Monday.
“I don't want Facebook to do better because they rigged the last election,” President Trump said on his social media site Truth Social last week. The former president offered no evidence of his claims. “They are the real enemies of the people.”
President Trump said on CNBC that he believes TikTok is a national security threat. However, he added, “If you ban TikTok, Facebook, etc., Facebook will be the main beneficiary.” And I think Facebook has been very dishonest. I think Facebook has been very detrimental to our country, especially when it comes to elections. ”
President Trump's press secretary Stephen Chan said Tuesday that the president views TikTok's Chinese ownership as a national security threat but appreciates that millions of people like the app. He said that
“President Trump believes Congress must act to protect the safety and privacy of U.S. users on all social media platforms,” Chan said.
President Trump's comments on TikTok quickly resonated on Capitol Hill, with Republican lawmakers who had long called for ByteDance to ban the app over concerns that it was controlled by Chinese authorities to criticize the former president. He was torn between his loyalty and his old position.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Wednesday morning on a bill that would require ByteDance to sell TikTok within 165 days of enactment and ban the company from using the app in the United States if it doesn't comply. The Senate has not yet indicated whether it will follow suit.
As president, Trump issued an executive order in 2020 declaring TikTok a threat to “the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” but only lifted the ban before that fall's election. There were times when I thought the move was dangerous. He is unpopular and likely to alienate young voters.
His latest reversal is, in part, the result of lobbying efforts connected to Republican mega-donors whose connections extend to Trump's inner circle.
Billionaire Jeff Yass' investment firm owns 15% of ByteDance, worth about $40 billion of the company's $268 billion valuation. Asked by CNBC about his recent meeting with Yas, Trump said the Republican donor “never mentioned TikTok” during the conversation, and that Yas' wife instead promoted school choice reform. He said he did. Yas has criticized Trump in the past.
But behind the scenes, Mr. Trump and his aides were talking about TikTok to people with direct financial ties to Mr. Yas. Yass is the largest donor to the conservative group Club for Growth, which is currently funding former Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway to defend TikTok on Capitol Hill and last year. He recently reconciled with Trump after a feud. Conway also spoke to Trump about the importance of protecting social media apps, according to two other people familiar with the matter, who also spoke anonymously to reflect the private discussion. He said he spoke on the condition that
According to these people, Conway told Trump that the app is popular and used by many of his supporters (a claim echoed by other pro-TikTok allies) and that he supports Trump. He said he was not being censored for doing so.
“I've made it clear that it's Trump supporters who are organically posting to TikTok in support of Trump and his re-election,” Conway said in an interview.
“For President Trump, this is about suddenly taking something away from millions of users, many of them his TikTok allies, and making it clear that it's about Mark Zuckerberg,” she said. Stated.
Trump says he doesn't want Zuckerberg to own TikTok.
Conway said he was paid to conduct a poll on banning TikTok and presented the results to Trump and the Republican Party. Conway said the poll's 11 questions gave Americans a chance to say what they think is most important in countering China. Her options, which included banning TikTok, “were at the bottom of a list of 11,” she said.
Another person who played a role in his decision was David Urban, ByteDance's longtime advisor and registered lobbyist. Mr. Trump's advisers say Mr. Urban, who represented Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania in 2016 and has maintained a relationship with Mr. Trump, has long been promoting the effectiveness of TikTok as a campaign tool to the public. . Trump was seen last week at Mar-a-Lago, where he met with Trump.
Mr. Urban declined to comment.
Tony Sayegh, a former Trump aide and communications director for Yas's Susquehanna International Group, has also been in contact with people close to Trump about TikTok, the people said. Sayegh was a senior adviser in the Trump administration and was considered a staunch defender of the former president. Saye has a close relationship with Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesman and key political adviser, the people said. Mr. Sayegh and Mr. Miller overlapped in college when they worked at Jamestown Associates, a Republican public relations and advertising firm. Mr. Sayegh remains close to many of Mr. Trump's inner circle, including Mr. Trump's family and political aide Brian Jack, the people said. A former Trump adviser said that Trump privately called Sayegh “Tony the Tax Guy” because of his efforts to cut Trump's taxes.
Saye declined to comment.
“It's no secret that Tony left the White House on very good terms and continued to cooperate when asked during the Trump administration,” one of the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity. said. “He left amicably, and he continues to stay amicably.”
Mr. Sayegh's connections are part of a broader spending campaign by tech companies in Washington. ByteDance spent nearly $9 million on federal lobbying last year, nearly double its total lobbying spending from the previous year, said Anna Massoglia, research manager at the nonpartisan group OpenSecret. TikTok's tech rivals are also spending heavily on lobbying efforts. His Meta's Reels on Facebook and Instagram are direct competitors to TikTok's short videos.
“ByteDance is putting more money than ever into lobbyists working to advance policy in Washington, and countless dollars in grassroots lobbying efforts that encourage users to advocate on ByteDance's behalf,” Massoglia said. “We are investing in this,” he said. “American Big Tech companies have also strategically pushed for further scrutiny of TikTok while protecting their own interests from the possibility of additional regulation.”
Trump's longstanding dislike of Zuckerberg seems to mesh well with the defense of TikTok he's heard from reliable sources. On CNBC, President Trump also mentioned that “what Facebook did was a lockbox,” adding that the $500 million “Zuckerbacks lockbox that he put in place — I mean, I think it's illegal.” ” he mentioned. The comment was an apparent reference to a nonprofit organization partially funded by Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, that helps local officials campaign. The Federal Election Commission rejected the subsidy claims in a 6-0 vote in 2022, angering some conservatives.
Despite the frustration with the meta, President Trump's comments on TikTok were frustrating for some China hawks who want the former president to take a harder line. Still, one person close to Mr. Trump, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reflect candidly, called TikTok a Chinese “disinformation warfare tool,” but said there is no way to properly deal with China. He said the former president also needs to be elected.
Drew Harwell contributed to this report.