With a US TikTok ban scheduled to take effect in less than a month, President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday that he’d like to keep the app around, according to Reuters. “We’re going to have to start thinking because, you know, we did go on TikTok, and we had a great response with billions of views, […]
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On Wednesday, the Supreme Court confirmed it would review whether a federal law that could ban or force a sale of TikTok is unconstitutional.
The announcement came just one day after TikTok and its owner ByteDance petitioned SCOTUS for a temporary injunction to halt the ban until the high court could consider what TikTok claimed is "a massive and unprecedented speech restriction" ahead of a change in US presidential administrations.
“We’re pleased with today’s Supreme Court order," TikTok said in a statement. "We believe the Court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights.”
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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments on January 10 around the TikTok divest-or-ban law. It could be TikTok's last hope of maintaining a presence in the US.
TikTok is challenging an April bill passed by Congress that required its owner, ByteDance, to divest from its US app or see it removed from app stores on January 19.
Congress has called TikTok a national security risk because its parent company is based in China, a country the US government views as a foreign adversary. US officials worry that TikTok could be used as a propaganda tool by the Chinese Communist Party. Members of Congress are also concerned that TikTok's US user data could end up in the hands of the CCP. TikTok has previously said that it does not share information with the Chinese government and relies on a US-based team to moderate content "independently from China."
TikTok filed a lawsuit against the legislation in the DC Circuit Court in May, arguing that it violated its users' First Amendment rights. The company lost its case earlier this month and filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, requesting an injunction to stop enforcement of the law until it can argue its case to the highest court. The Supreme Court has not yet agreed to pause enforcement of the law, though oral arguments will start before the ban is set to take effect.
It's not clear that the Supreme Court will be any more favorable to TikTok than the DC Circuit Court judges. In a recent report, Matthew Schettenhelm, a senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, gave the company a 20% chance of reversing its loss at the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court opts not to rescue TikTok, Donald Trump may still try to, though his options are limited. The incoming president met with TikTok's top executive, Shou Chew, on Monday, and said during a press conference that day that he would "take a look at TikTok" and had "a warm spot in my heart for TikTok."
If TikTok is pulled from app stores in early 2025, it would disrupt the businesses of some creators who rely on the app to make money. While many creators have built audiences on other short-video platforms like YouTube shorts and Instagram reels, TikTok is still the main hub for some talent. E-commerce sellers that lean heavily on TikTok's feature Shop will also have to pivot in the wake of a ban.
"A ban would be detrimental to up-and-coming creators and small businesses that rely solely or primarily on the app," Jasmine Enberg, the vice president and principal analyst at EMARKETER, told BI earlier this month. "Big brands and established creators would also be disrupted, but can better withstand the upheaval as they're more likely to have diversified their channels and have large, engaged audiences on other platforms."
The Supreme Court said on Wednesday that it will hear ByteDance and TikTok’s challenge to a law that would ban the social network in the U.S. unless the social network divests from Chinese ownership by January 19. On January 10, the Supreme Court justices will hear arguments about whether the sell-or-ban law violates the First Amendment. […]
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Kin Cheung/AP
TikTok is under a lot of pressure right now.
As US lawmakers worry the video-sharing platform, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, poses a danger to national security, TikTok is scrambling to fight a law requiring it be sold to a US owner by January 19 or else risk being banned in the country.
So who's leading the company through this turbulent period?
That would be Shou Zi Chew, TikTok's 41-year-old CEO from Singapore, who got his start as an intern at Facebook.
Here's a rundown on TikTok's head honcho:
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
He earned his bachelor's degree in economics at the University College London before heading to Harvard Business School for his MBA in 2010.
While a student there, Chew worked for a startup that "was called Facebook," he said in a post on Harvard's Alumni website. Facebook went public in mid-2012.
Theo Wargo/WireImage
They are "a couple who often finish each other's sentences," according to the school's alumni page, and have three kids.
REUTERS/Bobby Yip
He became chief financial officer of the Chinese smartphone giant, which competes with Apple, in 2015. Chew helped secure crucial financing and led the company through its 2018 public listing, which would become one of the nation's largest tech IPOs in history.
Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images.
Before joining Xiaomi, Chew also worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs for two years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He also worked at investment firm DST, founded by billionaire tech investor Yuri Milner, for five years. It was during his time there in 2013 that he led a team that became early investors in ByteDance, as the Business Chief and The Independent reported.
Zheng Shuai/VCG via Getty Images
Chew joined ByteDance's C-suite in March 2021, the first person to fill the role of chief financial officer at the media giant.
He was named CEO of TikTok that May at the same time as Vanessa Pappas was named COO. Bytedance founder and former CEO Zhang Yiming said at the time that Chew "brings deep knowledge of the company and industry, having led a team that was among our earliest investors, and having worked in the technology sector for a decade."
That November, it was announced that Chew would leave his role as ByteDance's CFO to focus on running TikTok.
TikTok's former CEO, Kevin Mayer, had left Walt Disney for the position in May 2020 and quit after three months as the company faced pressure from lawmakers over security concerns.
Jacquelyn Martin, Pool
Donald Trump's administration issued executive orders designed to force ByteDance into divesting its TikTok US operations, though nothing ever happened.
President Biden signed an executive order in June 2021 that threw out Trump's proposed bans on the app.
Last year, the Biden administration demanded that TikTok divest its American business from its Chinese parent company or risk being banned in the US. In response, Chew said such a divestment wouldn't solve officials' security concerns about TikTok.
TikTok
"Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok," he said. "Now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you."
Chew testified before Congress that month about the company's privacy and data security practices.
Wall Street said his testimony didn't do much to help his case to keep TikTok alive in the US, though Chew seemed to win over many TikTok users, with some applauding his efforts and even making flattering fancam edits of him.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The House of Representatives passed a bill on March 13 that would require any company owned by a "foreign adversary" to divest or sell to a US-based company within 180 days to avoid being banned in the US.
Chew put out a video response shortly after, asking users to "make your voices heard" and "protect your constitutional rights" by voicing opposition to lawmakers.
He called the vote "disappointing" and said the company has invested in improving data security and keeping the platform "free from outside manipulation."
"This bill gives more power to a handful of other social media companies," he added. "It will also take billions of dollars out of the pockets of creators and small businesses. It will put more than 300,000 American jobs at risk."
The Senate also passed the bill, and President Biden signed it into law in April.
In September, a hearing on the potential TikTok ban began in federal appeals court and in December, a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the law is constitutional.
Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Trump said in a press conference on the day they met that he has a "warm spot" for TikTok, which he has criticized in the past, because he says it helped him win over young voters in the 2024 election.
Also on the day of their meeting, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to block the law that requires it be sold to avoid a shutdown, arguing that it violates Americans' First Amendment rights.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
He's been seen at the Met Gala, and also posted about attending the 2023 Super Bowl and even Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.
His hobbies include playing video games like Clash of Clans and Diablo IV, golfing, and reading about theoretical physics.
TikTok has asked the Supreme Court to step in before it's forced to shut down the app in the US next month.
In a petition requesting a temporary injunction, TikTok prompted the Supreme Court to block the ban and grant a review that TikTok believes will result in a verdict that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is unconstitutional. And if the court cannot take up this review before TikTok's suggested January 6 deadline, the court should issue an administrative injunction delaying the ban until after Trump's inauguration, TikTok argued, appearing to seek any path to delay enforcement, even if only by a day.
According to TikTok, it makes no sense to force the app to shut down on January 19 if, the very next day or soon thereafter, Trump will take office and pause or otherwise intervene with enforcement.
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TikTok is now subject to not one, but two Digital Services Act (DSA) investigations. The European Union announced on Tuesday that it has opened a formal proceeding focused on election risks, specifically in the context of recent elections in Romania. The probe will focus on TikTok’s recommender systems, principally “risks linked to the coordinated inauthentic manipulation […]
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TikTok CEO Shou Chew met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, a person familiar with the meeting told Business Insider. The meeting comes as the popular video-sharing app fights to avoid an impending ban in the US.
Earlier on Monday, TikTok asked the US Supreme Court to block the law that requires the app to be sold by January 19 or be shut down. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, argued the ban violates the First Amendment rights of the millions of Americans who use the app. The request came after a panel of federal judges earlier this month upheld the ban.
Representatives for TikTok did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Details of the meeting were unclear. Trump has spoken out against the TikTok ban, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year.
"We'll take a look at TikTok," Trump said at a press conference earlier on Monday. "You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok."
Trump also said at the press conference that company executives have been more open to meeting with him ahead of his second term and that during his first term they were "hostile."
"Everybody was fighting me," he said. "This term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. My personality changed or something."
The meeting between Shou and Trump is the latest in TikTok's legal fight to remain available in the US.
The ban stems from lawmakers criticizing TikTok's data-collection practices and being concerned that the Chinese government is using the app to influence American politics.
In his first term, Trump tried to get the app banned in the US. But he has since flipped-flopped on his stance.
During this presidential run, Trump positioned himself as the TikTok-friendly candidate.
In June, he launched a TikTok account to rally younger voters. It now has 14.7 million followers.
Some of his closest advisors — some of whom he has tapped for cabinet roles — support the app's banning.
His pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, called the potential ban a "win for America" in March. Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr is also a vocal critic of the app, having called it an "unacceptable threat to U.S. national security."
Other cabinet picks, such as tech executive Jacob Helberg, the former US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, are all outspoken critics of the app.
TikTok and ByteDance asked the United States Supreme Court to block the law that forces TikTok to be sold off or banned in the United States, according to an emergency filing with America’s top court on Monday. The social media company requested that the Supreme Court consider blocking the sell-or-ban law passed earlier this year […]
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Joseph Arujo
TikTok creators and their teams are starting to take the threat of a ban in the US more seriously — and some wish they had begun preparing earlier.
TikTok could be yanked from US app stores as early as January 19 unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, divests. TikTok is challenging the law in court but was just handed another legal defeat this month.
While a ban might annoy many of TikTok's 170 million US users, it would be far more impactful for those creators who use it to make money through brand deals, its Creator Rewards Program, or other methods.
"Looking back, I wish I had encouraged my talent to focus on YouTube Shorts about a year ago — but no time like the present," said Estella Struck, founder of Viviene New York, referring to YouTube's short-form video product. Viviene New York is a marketing agency that works with brands and several TikTok-native creators.
"We're already preparing to diversify by focusing heavily on Instagram, YouTube, and even LinkedIn for short-form video content," Struck added.
Other creator-economy insiders expressed similar sentiments to BI about diversification. They generally felt that they could continue to build up audiences on other platforms or income through other gigs.
"The creator economy would take a blow, but it wouldn't be fatal," said Jasmine Enberg, VP and principal analyst at EMARKETER. "While over half of US companies use TikTok to work with creators and influencers, TikTok accounts for 17.2% of total spending."
Some parts of the creator economy could be hit harder than others, however.
Barbara Jones, CEO of Outshine Talent, said a ban "would be crushing for the e-commerce side," like those creators and brands earning money through TikTok Shop.
"Live e-commerce is really just getting started in the US, and TikTok Shop is leading the way," Jones said. "So, I think that side would be devastated. I think for content creators that make short-form content, they will be less affected."
Sam Saideman
Jones said she's gotten "a lot of calls of concerns and worry" about a potential TikTok ban.
Many creators and managers are putting together post-TikTok plans, even if they think there's a chance it could stick around.
"We are acting as if it may actually be gone in January despite, in my opinion, not thinking it will actually be gone," Sam Saideman, CEO of talent firm Innovo, told BI. "Best case, it doesn't go away."
Some ways of preparing are easier than others, Saideman said.
"Low-hanging fruit is to migrate fans to other social platforms," Saideman said. "Harder sells are to migrate those audiences to a place that is not reliant on algorithms such as SMS lists, email lists, or exclusive membership groups."
TikToker Joseph Arujo, who has over 830,000 followers, said he believes that even if TikTok is banned, it'll be short-lived, and ByteDance would be forced to sell.
"I think it's scary now that there is this deadline," Arujo said. "But I'm weighing out my options and going to other platforms."
Arujo isn't the only creator thinking about making changes. Justine, a content creator who has almost 260,000 followers on TikTok, said she isn't too worried about the potential ban but is thinking about "shifting a lot of focus" to Instagram and YouTube.
"I think regardless of what job you have, what role you have, having more streams of income, especially in this economy, is almost essential," said Justine, who asked her last name not be used for privacy reasons.
Creator Lauren Schiller, cofounder of the clothing company OGBFF, said that in the short term, she would post to Instagram reels, and then look to make longer-format videos for YouTube and post on her brand's blog.
A TikTok ban wouldn't impact all creators equally, Enberg said.
"A ban would be detrimental to up-and-coming creators and small businesses that rely solely or primarily on the app," Enberg said. "Big brands and established creators would also be disrupted, but can better withstand the upheaval as they're more likely to have diversified their channels and have large, engaged audiences on other platforms."
Megan, who asked her last name not be used for privacy reasons, is a stay-at-home mom who uses TikTok Shop as a side hustle to earn extra income through affiliate commissions.
"It's good to save, to take the trips, to buy Christmas gifts, to live a little more not so paycheck to paycheck," she said, adding that she earned nearly $8,000 in TikTok commissions one month.
She said she planned to allocate time to her other side hustles to make money if TikTok is banned.
Courtesy OGBFF/@chloegolan
"If there's a shift, I believe Instagram will likely take center stage, especially with its direct product-linking capabilities," Struck said.
Enberg said she thought Instagram and YouTube would be the biggest beneficiaries as they both have short-form video products that are natural fits for TikTokers.
"But even if a platform can replicate the technology, they can't force a change in culture," she said. "The type of viral, FOMO and trend-driven behavior doesn't exist on reels, even as the platform has tweaked its algorithm to better serve relevant content, including from smaller creators, to users."
Nya-Gabriella Parchment, cohead of brand partnerships at influencer firm Digital Brand Architects, said a lot of brands are betting on Instagram reels.
"It's easier to convert on Instagram, with ways to link out, so usually brands still use Instagram as their bedrock," Parchment said.
Parchment said creators are also interested in Snapchat again.
Arujo is one of them.
"Ever since the first threat of a TikTok ban, I decided I'm not going to rely on just this," Arujo said.
"Snapchat has been my No. 1," he said.
EMARKETER is owned by Business Insider's partner company Axel Springer.
Anadolu/Getty Images
Frank McCourt, the billionaire businessman who wants to buy TikTok, told Business Insider that, despite a Friday court ruling allowing the TikTok ban's looming January 19 deadline to proceed if the company isn't sold, the path to a sale remains unclear because "we don't know what ByteDance is selling."
McCourt is among a small handful of investors, including former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and the former chief executive of Activision, Bobby Kotick, who've publicly said they want to buy TikTok.
Through his nonprofit, Project Liberty, McCourt, the former Dodger's owner and real estate developer, has put together a bid worth over $20 billion to purchase TikTok and usher in what he calls the dawn of an "alternative, upgraded internet" that allows users more control of their own personal data.
However, he said, "It's very, very difficult to have precision" regarding the specifics of a potential sale because "let's be clear, we don't know what ByteDance is selling."
ByteDance, TikTok's China-based parent company, has so far refused to entertain talks over a potential sale, McCourt said.
The company's apparent reluctance to negotiate comes despite a December 6 court ruling upholding a law that requires the app be banned from the US in January if it is not sold to a non-Chinese entity. The divest-or-ban legislation aimed to address years of concerns from critics that the influential short-form video social media app could be used as a propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.
On Friday, Reuters reported that the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied TikTok's emergency bid to stop the ban from taking effect on January 19.
When reached by Business Insider, a TikTok spokesperson declined to comment on the terms of any potential sale, instead saying the company plans on appealing the case to the Supreme Court under the grounds that a potential ban is a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.
"The voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world will be silenced on January 19th, 2025 unless the TikTok ban is halted," the TikTok spokesperson said.
Representatives for ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Just because they're not talking about the specifics of a deal "doesn't mean they won't eventually come to that," McCourt said.
And when ByteDance is ready to talk, so is he, he said.
McCourt's TikTok purchase project, which he calls "The People's Bid" has secured the backing of Guggenheim Securities, an investment banking firm, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law firms.
Rather than recreate the app's algorithm and continue business as it currently operates, McCourt hopes to acquire and use TikTok as a large-scale example of a decentralized social media app that allows users more control over their personal data.
"Imagine you're signing on to the internet. You don't have 50 passwords. You're not the IP address of a device anymore — you're actually a person on the internet, and you have the IP address, so when you sign on the internet, you have access to all the apps that are built on the same core-level protocol," McCourt said. "Now imagine all your data is yours, and you permission its use, so the apps that are built in this new world are clicking on your terms and conditions of use for your data."
The momentum behind decentralized social media — and the internet more broadly — has, in recent years, been gaining steam. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, says he is partially to blame for helping to "centralize" the internet and that he regrets it. He's since shifted his focus to building decentralized tech solutions.
Others, such as Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst sentenced to 35 years in prison over her 2010 leak of classified government information, publicly promote decentralized security solutions to enhance user privacy amid concerns about cyber surveillance.
While some users are increasingly interested in decentralized social media, it is difficult for new sites to break through the centralized landscape and siphon off enough users from giants like Meta and Elon Musk's X to get to scale.
Smaller platforms often fail to achieve the positive feedback loop known as the network effect, which entices new users to join based on the positive experience of the existing user base.
If McCourt is able to acquire TikTok, the platform's existing 170 million users would come with the brand — and he's not worried that ByteDance has reportedly shut down any talks of selling the app's signature algorithm, declaring it integral to its internal operations; he wouldn't want to buy it if it did.
"There'd probably be more buyers if the algorithm was available, or at least more buyers kicking the tires," McCourt said. "But we don't want the algorithm. If someone offered TikTok to me with the algorithm, I wouldn't take it because I'm against the architecture, the design that preys on people and takes advantage of people. I think it's incongruent with our democratic principles."
Nearly half of teens in the U.S. are online almost constantly, and the platform they’re using the most is YouTube, a new study from the Pew Research Center has found. The Center reports that 46% of teens say they’re online “almost constantly,” and 90% of teens it surveyed said they use the Google-owned video platform, […]
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The Department of Justice has asked a U.S. appeals court to reject ByteDance and TikTok’s emergency motion that aims to temporarily block the law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless the social network divests from Chinese ownership by January 19. The Justice Department said the court should not delay the matter, arguing that […]
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Getty Images; iStock; Natalie Ammari/BI
LinkedIn is taking aim at TikTok — and creators are intrigued.
Since the spring, the Microsoft-owned platform has been gradually rolling out a TikTok-style vertical video feed that features career advice, industry news, and other creator content. A LinkedIn spokesperson said "most" users now have access to it. Videos can also appear in the app's main feed.
Meghana Dhar, a creator with 15,000 LinkedIn followers, said her LinkedIn "engagement has just exploded" since she started posting videos. She added that LinkedIn moving toward video "indicates that they're taking creators really seriously."
Several creators, including Dhar, told BI that they often see much more engagement and impressions on their video posts than on their text or photo ones. Engagement refers to interactions with a post, such as a like, while impressions are how many people view a piece of content.
Dhar said, for example, that a recent text post she shared on LinkedIn got about 10,000 impressions, while a video of her talking to the camera hit over 2 million impressions. Marketing strategist Caroline Giegerich found that her LinkedIn video posts reached three times as many people as her text posts did.
A LinkedIn spokesperson said video posts — including videos shared from individual profiles and pages — get 1.4 times as much engagement on average as other posts on LinkedIn.
While the concept of LinkedIn video might feel strange to some users, it could be a key for the platform to cement itself as a core platform for creators, unlock more ad revenue, and keep people checking their feeds regularly. The top platforms for creators, such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, are all heavily focused on video.
"I am on a personal mission to make LinkedIn a daily habit for people," Jamé Jackson, a LinkedIn community manager, told BI. "We are so much more than just a platform for job searching."
This isn't LinkedIn's first attempt at video. In 2019, LinkedIn launched its live video product. In 2020, it launched a "Stories" feature, which lets users share disappearing videos (that shut down in 2021).
Still, there is some indication that this current, TikTok-like push might be what finally breaks through.
"Our investments in rich formats, like video, strengthen our leadership in B2B advertising and amplify the value we deliver to our customers," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the company's October earnings call. "Weekly immersive video views increased 6x quarter-over-quarter and total video viewership on LinkedIn is up 36% year-over-year."
So, what makes a good LinkedIn video?
Jackson said to avoid creating content that "feels way too sales-y and promotional" and to keep the video to under two minutes: short, snappy, and actionable.
"The call to action is important because I always like to secretly tell people that the comments section is the liquid gold of LinkedIn," Jackson said. "The way you do that is by inviting people to the party, inviting them to the table after you've created that video, asking them to share in the comments things that they have learned."
LinkedIn has also seen an uptick in "faceless video content," where people aren't front and center, Jackson said, adding that it had generally performed well.
The platform has encouraged CEOs and executives to talk about breaking news as well, Jackson said.
Creators generally say that compared to other platforms like TikTok and Instagram, LinkedIn is much less saturated — and that's an opportunity to build audiences.
"I've been posting on LinkedIn almost daily, certainly every weekday for a couple of years now," said Avi Gandhi, who has 23,000 LinkedIn followers.
Gandhi has recently focused on short-form video content, posting three to four times a week and often promoting his newsletter by calling out the name and including a link to subscribe at the end of the text post.
Career coach and creator Jahleane Dolne said she often uses LinkedIn to post podcast clips. While her largest following is on TikTok (about 34,000), Dolne said her podcast clips are a better fit for the LinkedIn audience.
Despite the audience growth for some creators, the ecosystem for making money on LinkedIn isn't yet fully developed. That may be changing, though. Three of the creators BI spoke with said they were either already working on LinkedIn-focused brand deals or actively reaching out to potential sponsors. And earlier this year, the marketing agency Creator Authority launched with a focus on LinkedIn.
However, the platform has not yet introduced a monetization program similar to those on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube that directly pays creators.
"If LinkedIn launches monetization for videos where you could start making money from the videos that you post, that would be huge," Gandhi said. "That would be incredible and that would make it all worth it."
TikTok’s e-commerce Shop feature is going live in Spain, the company announced on Tuesday, marking the first step of a wider European rollout. The launch indicates that TikTok parent ByteDance is speeding up the expansion of the TikTok Shop in European markets as a potential U.S. ban looms. Users in Spain will now be able […]
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ByteDance is the biggest buyer of Nvidia's AI chips inside China as the TikTok owner seeks to establish itself in the artificial intelligence sector, the Financial Times reported.
A US export ban introduced in 2022 restricts China from acquiring Nvidia's more advanced GPUs. One is the H100 — a coveted chip that powers data-hungry AI models and has helped turn Nvidia into a $3 trillion company amid the global AI boom.
The ban limits China to Nvidia's less powerful H20 chip. In May, Chinese government officials asked local tech companies to buy domestic-made chips instead.
Despite the US regulation and China's pleas, ByteDance has emerged as Nvidia's largest buyer of AI chips, sources who spoke to FT said. One source told the publication that ByteDance is Nvidia's largest customer in Asia.
The report did not disclose a figure, but The Information reported in September that the TikTok parent company placed orders for more than 200,000 Nvidia H20s this year.
Bytedance appears to be seeking a workaround to the US ban to get its hands on Nvidia's H100 and Blackwell chips by increasing computing capacity outside of China, including plans for new data centers in Malaysia, sources familiar with the matter told the FT.
ByteDance did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider on Sunday.
The TikTok owner's push to acquire more Nvidia chips is part of the company's broader effort to establish itself as an AI powerhouse.
The company has siphoned top engineers from rival companies and startups, according to the FT. In 2021, the company indicated plans to attract overseas AI talent, Business Insider reported.
Bytedance is also joining a chorus of Big Tech companies looking to disrupt Nvidia's dominance by developing its own chip. Sources familiar with the matter told the FT that the company is building an AI chip for machine learning modeled after Google's Tensor Processing Unit.
Earlier this year, ByteDance unveiled a tool not available to the public called StreamVoice. This tool allows users to change their voice into another person, such as a celebrity, with AI. The company also launched Cici AI, an AI-powered chat assistant that relies on OpenAI's GPT.
Amid its push to become a formidable player in the AI race, ByteDance still faces major hurdles, including a slowed user growth rate on TikTok and an uncertain future in the US, where an appeals court recently upheld a ban on the short-form video platform. Judges concluded that ByteDance must sell TikTok to avoid being banned from app stores.
Several ultrawealthy investors have offered to buy the platform, including Kevin O'Leary of "Shark Tank," former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, and billionaire former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.
"We don't want to see it banned," McCourt said on Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. "I'd add that President-elect Trump has also said he doesn't want to see it banned. So now, let's talk about the sale."
TikTok is doing everything it can to delay a potential ban starting the day before Donald Trump takes office in January.
On Monday, TikTok filed an emergency motion requesting a temporary injunction on a US law that requires its owner, ByteDance, to sell off TikTok by January 19 or else be banned in the US due to national security concerns.
Planning to appeal to the Supreme Court to block the law on First Amendment grounds, TikTok urged the court to delay enforcing the law until SCOTUS has ample time to review the constitutionality of the law, which would impact millions of American speakers who use TikTok each month. TikTok also argued that Trump could "moot" SCOTUS review if he decides to "save" TikTok, as he promised on the campaign trail.
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