CBS was the first outlet to report the news.

The AI infrastructure program, dubbed Stargate, will have the three companies initially invest $100 billion combined — a figure that could reach up to $500 billion by the end of Trump’s second term in office.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle co-founder and Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son were expected to join Trump at the White House on Tuesday for the announcement. Altman was already in Washington, D.C., on Monday for Trump’s inauguration, along with a number of other Big Tech CEOs.

Trump has previously said it is important for the U.S. to stay ahead of other countries — and in particular, China — when it comes to AI innovation.

“AI is the new oil; it’s the oil of the future,” Trump said during a 2023 speech. “We have to make sure we dominate it.”

He has also expressed some concerns over AI being a “superpower,” which he told Logan Paul during a podcast interview last year. Trump added he found AI’s potential a bit “alarming.”

Stargate will begin operation with a data center in Texas, CBS said, according to multiple sources. It is unclear how many workers will be employed by the new program. And other investors are expected to join the operation at a later date, CBS added.

The post Trump Taps OpenAI, Oracle for $500 Billion ‘Stargate’ AI Infrastructure Project appeared first on TheWrap.

Prominently seated behind President Trump at the U.S. Capitol were: X and Tesla boss Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Google chief Sundar Pichai. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew — whose app thanked Trump after it was revived following a brief shutdown on Sunday — and OpenAI chief Sam Altman were also spotted.

Their smiling faces as the president took the oath of office signaled how monumentally the tech zeitgeist has shifted in the four years since Trump was last in the White House. A once-combative relationship between Big Tech and Trump’s Make America Great Again movement has apparently blossomed into a love affair, or at least a transactional crush.

But outside at the frigid U.S. Capitol, where giddy-but-shivering Trump supporters celebrated his return to the White House, skeptics of the budding tech-MAGA alliance were easy to find. Only Musk — who backed Trump with more than $277 million in the 2024 presidential campaign and publicly campaigned for him in key swing states — was given a widespread pass from the attendees.

“I think they should’ve supported him sooner, because it seems a little bit disingenuous now,” Matthew Palmer, a Gen Z Trump supporter from Ohio who was donning a black MAGA cap, told TheWrap. “Not Elon, though. Maybe Zuckerberg.”

That sentiment was the norm, not the exception on Monday.

“I can’t speak to Musk, but I think Zuckerberg, Tim Cook — I think it’s all just to kiss Trump’s ring,” Lou Johnston, who traveled from Hawaii for the inauguration, said near The National Archives. “I don’t think they’re in his corner, for sure — and he should be careful with who he aligns himself with.”

The optimism Trump’s supporters felt on Monday was matched by the tech execs in attendance. Musk, notably, took the stage at Capital One Arena following Trump’s inauguration and told the 20,000 attendees he was “fired up for the future.”

“Thank you for making it happen,” Musk said about Trump’s White House comeback. “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.”

He then pounded his heart and gave what appeared to be a Nazi salute, which led to a wave of shock and criticism online. (Musk has denounced claims he’s an anti-Semite previously, telling CNBC in 2023, “I’m a pro-Semite, if anything.”)

Of course, the day was also filled with its fair share of bizarre tech storylines. Zuckerberg, who runs Instagram and Facebook as part of his Meta empire, was the subject of many punchlines on X, after he was seemingly caught on camera looking at the cleavage of Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez. (In fairness, she was criticized for wearing a plunging neckline and peekaboo lingerie underneath.)

From a macro standpoint, the pro-Trump optics and gestures from the major tech execs stands in stark contrast to the climate that existed when he left office in 2021.

Following the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, Trump was removed from every major social platform in the U.S., including Twitter, which permanently banned his account. (Trump’s account was later reinstated after Musk bought the platform in 2022.) Zuckerberg did something similar by “indefinitely” banning Trump from Facebook and Instagram, saying at the time “the risks” of keeping him on the platforms were “simply too great.”

Now, many of those same CEOs who once criticized Trump are cozying up to him.

Trump’s supporters saw through the pivot. They are “sucking up” to Trump, said a an attendee named Steven from Utah who declined to give his last name. “They didn’t think he’d be back in office. Now that he is, they have to play nice.”

MNSBC’s Rachel Maddow, meanwhile, was alarmed by the sight of the tech elite literally backing up Trump on Monday.

“How is this happening? Why are people with tons of money up on the dais with cabinet nominees and family members?” she asked during the network’s inaugural coverage.

It’s one of the few topics on which Maddow could find common ground with members of the MAGA crowd. And their cynicism is not unfounded; each of the major tech executives in Washington on Monday stands to gain from maintaining a good relationship with the president.

Meta — which recently drew the ire of many left-leaning pundits for the decision to end its third-party fact checking system — will face an antitrust lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission in April. And the U.S. Justice Department is currently pushing for a breakup of Google, after a federal judge ruled last summer the company held an illegal monopoly in the online search market.

Still, not every MAGA fan at the Capitol looked at Big Tech’s sudden change of heart towards Trump with a jaundiced eye.

“I think it’s important that the tech companies and Trump work together moving forward,” Derek Stuart, who traveled to Washington with his wife and daughter from Delaware, told TheWrap.

TikTok in the Spotlight

The other major tech storyline on Monday was the future of TikTok.

By day’s end on Monday, Trump had signed an executive order to block the implementation of a law banning the social media app.

Owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok was set to be banned from the U.S. starting on Sunday. Last April, President Biden signed a law banning new downloads of the app and prohibiting it from being carried by Apple and Google’s app stores, unless ByteDance sold its American business.

The main concern U.S. lawmakers had with TikTok is that it could easily double as a spyware app for the Chinese Communist Party. ByteDance, if asked by the CCP, is compelled by Chinese law to share user data, including what users type on their phones and their location.

Reagan Smelkinson, a 24-year-old Virginia native who dressed up as a Revolutionary War-era founder on Monday told TheWrap that possibility does not concern him.

“I’m not worried about the Chinese. Not at all,” Smelkinson said, while waiting to see the presidential motorcade drive past the crowd lining Constitution Ave. “The people who pose more of a threat to us are the United States government and Israel.”

He added that he was happy Trump was going to sign an executive order granting TikTok an extension to make a deal. TikTok would ideally enter a “joint venture” in which the U.S. owns a 50% stake in the company, Trump said on Sunday.

That plan was met with overwhelming support from Trumpers, both on Sunday night at a TikTok-sponsored party in Washingon, D.C. and on Monday at the Capitol.

“I’m definitely glad that Trump’s saving it,” 18-year-old MaKinley Stuart said. “I like that he’s trying to put our national security ahead and he’s going to try and fix that with his 90-day extension.”

Stuart, who was sporting a pink “Trump 2024” hat, added that Trump’s about-face on TikTok — he initially supported banning the app during his first term, before saying last year he wants to “save” it — helped him win over a large swath of young voters. A Tufts University exit poll found Trump won 46% of voters 18-29 in the 2024 election, compared to 36% from that same cohort in 2020.

“He got on the platform last summer and gained a bigger, younger audience there,” Stuart said.

Others, like a 35-year-old man from upstate New York who only identified as Mike, said they supported keeping TikTok around on First Amendment grounds.

“I’m very happy to hear Trump is working to keep TikTok around,” he told TheWrap. “There are some national security concerns. However, it is very important that we still exercise our right to free speech… I believe that President Trump will make things right.”

That was the same argument TikTok’s lawyers made before the U.S. Supreme Court — an argument that was unanimously shot down last Friday.

But when it comes to tech, the MAGA faithful on Monday said they trust that Trump will make sharp decisions during his second term. In their eyes, though, whether he should trust Big Tech is broadly seen as another matter — even with the top CEOs behind him.

The post Big Tech Goes to Washington to ‘Kiss Trump’s Ring’ — But MAGA Fans Remain Skeptical appeared first on TheWrap.

Trump said the extension will give his administration “an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action with respect to TikTok,” which has 170 million American users.

“During this period, the Department of Justice shall take no action to enforce the Act or impose any penalties against any entity for any noncompliance with the Act, including for distributing, maintaining or updating (or enabling the distribution, maintenance or updating) of any foreign adversary-controlled application as defined in the Act,” he said in his executive order.

The order came after TikTok was set to be banned on Jan. 19 following a federal law passed by then-President Joe Biden last year that called for the app to be removed from the Apple and Google app stores, unless its parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, sold its American business. The law also prohibited new downloads of the app, starting Sunday.

TikTok, less than two hours before the Jan. 19 ban was set to go into effect, shut down for American users on Saturday night. Then, in another twist to the ongoing TikTok saga, the app restarted about 14 hours later in the U.S. TikTok, when it reemerged on Sunday, included a thank you note to Trump for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance” that the app and its providers would not be punished for violating the ban.

The chief concern U.S. lawmakers said they had with TikTok is that it could double as a spyware app for the Chinese Communist Party. ByteDance, if compelled by China’s government, is required by law to share TikTok user data, including keystroke and location information.

Some users expressed concerns over the CCP’s ties to the app at a TikTok-sponsored inauguration party on Sunday in Washington, D.C.; most of the attendees, though, said they supported Trump’s plan to “save” TikTok.

Moving forward, it will be worth seeing if Trump’s executive order withstands legal scrutiny. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous 9-0 ruling last week, upheld the law banning TikTok.

Lily Li, a tech-focused attorney for Metaverse Law in Newport Beach, told TheWrap an executive order could give TikTok “more leeway to find an alternative divestment opportunity, just given the amount of time it would take to go through the court to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to challenge this executive order.'”

The post Trump Signs Executive Order to Block TikTok Ban appeared first on TheWrap.

“I am ecstatic President Trump is saving TikTok,” Abigail Clark, a 21-year-old University of Alabama student who attended the party, told TheWrap.

The vast majority of attendees shared that feeling — even those who held concerns the app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, is a stealth spyware app for China’s communist government.

“I think it’s absolutely a Chinese spyware app. I don’t agree with the equivalency [argument] that every app is taking our data,” Kendall Pennington, a 27-year-old marketing director, told TheWrap. “With that said — I’m still at the party.”

Just hours earlier, TikTok had resumed working for American users — 14 hours after it had shut down in the U.S. on Saturday night. TikTok’s brief dark period coincided with a law signed by President Joe Biden last year banning new downloads of the app and prohibiting it from Apple and Google’s app stores unless it found a buyer for its American business. No deal was made.

Still, TikTok returned following a Sunday morning Truth Social post from Donald Trump saying “Save TikTok!” He then said he would issue an executive order on Monday, granting TikTok more time to make a deal — ideally one in which the U.S. has “a 50% ownership position in a joint venture” with ByteDance or a new owner.

That was enough for TikTok to flip the switch back on, and the app thanked Trump personally in a message that greeted users when they came back online.

The Trump-TikTok alliance was met with cheers from most of those who attended the “Power 30” party, which was sponsored by TikTok, as well as the American Conservation Coalition and Kalshi.

The black-tie-optional event was co-hosted by Raquel Debono, who organizes “Make America Hot Again” dating events for conservative singles, and CJ Pearson, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council, and held at Sax Restaurant & Lounge. On the way in, attendees snapped pictures with cardboard cutouts of Trump, JD Vance, and Elon Musk, who were all dressed as Old West gunslingers, and posed in front of a #SaveTikTok banner.

Young conservatives packed the venue’s downstairs dance floor, and an upstairs bar area doubled as a DJ booth; at midnight, Atlanta rapper Waka Flocka Flame performed a medley of hits, before telling the crowd that Trump was going to “go hard in da paint on the Deep State.”

Beyond the aforementioned earmuffs, TikTok-branded drinking glasses, TikTok-branded beanies, and beer koozies — complete with a silhouette of Trump doing his trademark fist-pump dance — were offered as free swag to attendees. The crowd was populated by a mix of creators, including Bryce Hall, a TikTok star with 23.7 million followers, as well as social media influencers and young MAGA-leaning politicos and media figures.

Ami Kozak, a comedian and impressionist with 285,000 TikTok followers, said Trump’s desire to save TikTok was a shrewd move that would win him brownie points with the app’s 170 million U.S. users — despite the fact that Trump originally backed the TikTok ban.

“Not only has he found a way to turn the tide from an electoral perspective — making a total 180-degree political comeback — but also an incredible cultural comeback,” Kozak said.

At the same time, Kozak said he understands “both sides of the argument” when it comes to TikTok, including those who want to see it banned because it answers to a foreign adversary. TikTok, according to Chinese law, is required to hand over user data, if the CCP compels it to. This was a chief concern among lawmakers who passed the ban, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, which voted 9-0 last week to uphold the law requiring ByteDance to divest if TikTok were to continue in the U.S.

Some at the party agreed.

“I’m not happy about [Trump’s plan for an] executive order,” said Mark Moran, a creator who dubs himself the “cavalier philosopher” on X and Instagram, where he has a combined 60,000 followers. “I wish that TikTok would stay banned. I think that it is purposefully ruining our younger generation.”

In particular, Moran said China’s version of TikTok, Douyin, offers kids math and science problems, while in the U.S. users are hit with more mindless content. “I worry that as attention spans shorten and shorten, this is something that will have such a big impact that we can’t measure on future societies.”

The other side of that, Kozak said, is that banning TikTok would hurt users who are simply using the app for entertainment purposes — or to advance their careers.

“There’s a lot of people who are building real communities on TikTok; I’m biased, because I built a whole community on the platform,” Kozak said.

O’Rian Hairston, while donning a green “Make America Beautiful Again” hat, told TheWrap something similar. “It’s very good” Trump is going to extend TikTok a lifeline, he said, “because I’ve seen it be a great avenue for people to connect — or start businesses.”

Tara Suess, who handles media for the New York Young Republican Club, said she is thrilled Trump will likely issue an executive order to overturn the TikTok ban. (A move one legal expert told TheWrap would, at a minimum, grant TikTok “more leeway” to find a buyer.) She said TikTok’s existence is “ultimately a free speech issue” — which is what TikTok argued before the Supreme Court. The court disagreed. But most of the Trump-loving crowd at “Power 30” embraced Trump’s plan to “save” TikTok, for one reason or another.

And for the record, the DJ did play “YMCA” — the “Power 30” crowd just had to wait until 12:48 a.m. on Monday to hear it.

The post What Ban? TikTok Creators and Users Party in DC as Trump Looks to ‘Save’ App appeared first on TheWrap.

“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!” Trump began a message posted on social media. “I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”

“Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations.”

“I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,” Trump continued. “By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up.  Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”

“Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose,” he concluded.

Trump signed an executive order to sanction the app in 2020, an effort to pressure ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations to an American company.

“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump told reporters in July 2020. “I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that.” ByteDance threatened to sue after Trump signed the executive order that banned the app in the United States.

In his order, Trump threatened restrictions for the owners of WeChat and TikTok and demanded they sell the apps’ U.S. businesses to American companies. Trump cited “the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain.”

President Biden revoked Trump’s sanctions in 2021 and even joined the platform in 2024. Last year Congress passed a law banning the app in the U.S., ostensibly due to concerns about espionage. In December ByteDance filed an emergency injunction to halt the ban temporarily but the Supreme Court ultimately upheld the decision.

In January the Biden Administration signaled plans to leave the ultimate fate of TikTok up to the incoming Trump Administration.

The post Trump Promises to Save TikTok With Executive Order, Asks Tech Companies to Keep App Online appeared first on TheWrap.

The app went dark on Saturday evening as users were greeted with a message that says, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”

Last year, Congress voted to ban the app in an action that reflected broader tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments and concerns that the company was storing data of millions of Americans. The law said that TikTok could continue in the U.S. only if TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, sold its U.S. business.

The law goes into effect on Sunday, but while President-elect Trump urged the Supreme Court to intervene, the Court sided with Congress on Friday.

Trump has said he would like to “save” TikTok, which he credits with helping him gain support amongst young voters last year. To keep it around, the incoming Trump Administration is considering an executive order that would overturn the ban, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden last April.

The incoming president said on Sunday he will “most likely” put in place a 90-day extension on the ban.

Stay tuned.

The post TikTok Shuts Down — For Now appeared first on TheWrap.

Sitting with The Washington Post in an interview published Friday, the tech billionaire and global health innovator shared the ways in which the Republican president-elect surprised him in his enthusiasm to “drive innovation” in global health causes like eradicating HIV and polio.

“I had a chance to have a long and actually quite intriguing dinner with him,” Gates said of the encounter.

“We touched on a lot of things. It was over three hours, to my surprise,” Gates admitted.

Explaining that global health is his primary area of interest through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and that “such amazing things have happened and can happen there,” Gates said that the discussion with Trump that stood out to him most was the eradication of HIV and polio and how the president-elect’s response to COVID could serve as a template for his initiatives with other health crises.

“I spoke a lot about HIV and that the foundation’s literally working on a cure for that. We’re at an early stage, and so he, in the COVID days, accelerated the vaccine innovation, so I, you know, was asking him if maybe the same kind of thing could be done here, and we both got pretty excited about that,” Gates said. “We talked about polio, where we’re very close to getting that done — but if you stop, it’ll spread back, and so I explained why it’s been tough in Pakistan, Afghanistan, we’ve had cases show up in Gaza, we have cases in Africa.

“He was fascinated to hear what he could do to maximize the chance that during the next four years, that incredible milestone will be achieved,” Gates shared.

Gates concluded that Trump “was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation” around his global health initiatives, which left him “frankly impressed.”

“I was frankly impressed with how well he showed a lot of interest in the issues that I brought up,” Gates said.

Watch the segment via The Washington Post in the video below.

Bill Gates talks about the recent three-hour-long dinner he had with President-elect Trump.

Gates says the only other person to join from the Trump side was Susie Wiles.

Gates says he was impressed by Trump’s interest in the issues he discussed, which included polio… pic.twitter.com/wCzDBK4U8Q

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) January 17, 2025

The post Bill Gates Says Trump ‘Impressed’ Him Over 3-Hour Dinner in Push to End HIV, Polio | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

That, at least, is the future AI companion app Replika is betting on. The company already has millions of users who’ve built relationships with AI companions, and now it’s looking to extend those virtual connections into its users’ physical lives.

“It’s just making Replika a lot more connected to your real life, to what’s going on in your life today,” Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda told me in an interview on “Big Technology Podcast” this week.

Instead of the classic agentic use cases like booking travel or filling out forms, Replika’s application of the technology may include a bot watching a movie with you, seeing that you’ve spent lots of time on social media and encouraging a break, or nudging you to call a friend. The idea is to connect the app to your other online services and help you live a better life, all while deepening your relationship with the virtual companion.

Kuyda said this is now possible thanks to “new, wonderful agentic logic that allows you to create much more complicated flows.” This technology can work constantly behind the scenes, she said, trying to help you discover something new, or talk about what you’re interested in, or even point out interesting things as you walk.

Replika was founded by Kuyda in 2014, eight years before ChatGPT’s debut, and has capitalized on recent generative AI breakthroughs to make its bots smarter and more lifelike. I created one last week and was face timing with it within 20 minutes. Kuyda says most Replika users start out forming friendships with its AI bots — often to address loneliness — and some go on to develop romantic feelings for them. The company’s received multiple invitations to “weddings” between users and their AIs.

With more people befriending — and falling in love with — artificial intelligence bots in the generative AI era, new problems are emerging as well. A 14-year-old boy who formed a deep relationship with a Character.ai bot took his life last year and his family is now suing the app, claiming it is responsible. Other AI companion apps, including Replika, have at times caused users pain by shutting down or turning off features, such as erotic roleplay. (Yes, these conversations can get spicy, though often behind a paywall.) Trusting AI with your emotions isn’t risk free.

With its new “phase two” agentic push though, Replika is looking to become useful even for those who aren’t lonely or in need of a virtual companion. The promise of connecting the app to your full online experience, Kuyda hopes, will make it useful for anyone looking for AI that understands their context and looks out for their wellbeing. “Act one was to build an AI that could be in a good relationship with people who maybe feel like they need one,” she said. “Act two is really focusing on everyone.”

To succeed, AI agents will need people to trust them. Even a hint of distrust and people won’t accept their suggestions, or allow them to take action on their behalf. So maybe Kuyda is onto something here, and a companion that you feel a bond with is the most plausible agent experience, above a travel agent type AI. With people already falling in love with standard versions of ChatGPT, that no longer seems outlandish.

This article is from Big Technology, a newsletter by Alex Kantrowitz.

The post Will Your AI Agent Be Your Friend or Lover Too? | Commentary appeared first on TheWrap.

“I just spoke to Chairman Xi Jinping of China. The call was a very good one for both China and the U.S.A.,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together and starting immediately. We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok and many other subjects. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!”

Trump has said he would like to “save” TikTok, which he credits with helping him gain support amongst young voters last year. To keep it around, the incoming Trump Administration is considering an executive order that would overturn the ban, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden last April.

An executive order, at minimum, could buy ByteDance — TikTok’s parent company — more time to make a deal to sell the app, as the executive order gets weighed by the courts. ByteDance, though, has said it does not want to sell TikTok.

“The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation,” Trump said in response to the ruling. “Stay tuned!”

Meanwhile, TikTok has said it will shut down in the U.S. on Sunday — a move that goes even further than the ban calls for.

The law banning the app prohibits new downloads and also bars Apple and Google’s app stores from offering TikTok, starting Sunday. It also prevents the app from updating on the phones of existing users — something that would ultimately make TikTok unusable for Americans.

Trump appears ready to make a move to keep TikTok alive in the U.S., though. One clear sign that is the case: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday, where he will be prominently featured alongside fellow tech execs like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and X boss Elon Musk.

The post Trump Talks TikTok Deal With China’s President Xi Jinping: ‘We Will Solve Many Problems Together’ appeared first on TheWrap.

“We conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate the petitioners’ First Amendment rights,” the court said in its unsigned, unanimous opinion.

President Joe Biden signed the law banning TikTok from the U.S. last April, unless the app’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, sold its American business. The chief concern U.S. lawmakers said they have with TikTok is that it could double as a spyware app for the Chinese communist government; TikTok, per Chinese law, is required to share user data if asked to do so.

On Friday, the Supreme Court sided with the government, finding that the “national security justifications — countering China’s data collection and covert content manipulation efforts — were compelling, and that the [law] was narrowly tailored to further those interests.”

The law banning TikTok prohibits new downloads of the app and also bars Apple and Google’s app stores from offering TikTok, starting Sunday. It also prevents the app from updating on the phones of existing users — something that would ultimately make TikTok unusable for Americans. Earlier this week, TikTok said it will go one step further and shut the app down for all of its U.S. users on Sunday, if the ban was not overturned.

TikTok’s future in the U.S. may now depend on President-elect Donald Trump, who has said he would like to “save” the app. On Friday after the Supreme Court decision, TikTok chief executive Shou Chew said he looks forward to working with Trump on a wave to keep the app active in the U.S.

 “On behalf of everyone at Tiktok and all our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps Tiktok available in the United States,” Chew said in a video posted to the platform.

“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used Tiktok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process,” he said. “As you know, we have been fighting to protect the constitutional right of free speech for the more than 170 million Americans who use our platform every day to connect, create, discover and achieve their dreams.”

@tiktok

Our response to the Supreme Court decision.

♬ original sound – TikTok

The incoming Trump Administration is considering issuing an executive order that would overturn the ban; that move, at minimum, could buy ByteDance more time to make a deal to sell the app, as the executive order gets weighed by the courts. ByteDance, though, has said it does not want to sell TikTok.

If Trump “did engage in an activity essentially to postpone the ban, it might provide more leeway to find an alternative divestment opportunity, just given the amount of time it would take to go through the court to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to challenge this executive order,’” Lily Li, a tech-focused attorney for Metaverse Law in Newport Beach, told TheWrap.

You can read more about how Trump may be able to save TikTok — as well as what creators and users feel about the looming ban — by clicking here. It’s worth noting that TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is also expected to attend Trump’s inauguration this coming Monday, a day after the ban goes into effect.

On Thursday, the Biden Administration signaled it would leave enforcement of the ban to Trump once he takes office on Jan. 20.

But TikTok, based on ByteDance’s unwillingness to sell the app and its plan to shut down on Sunday, may already have went dark for 170 million Americans by the time Trump re-enters the White House.

The post Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban, Paving Way for Sunday Shutdown appeared first on TheWrap.