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.”
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:
Chew worked for Facebook when it was still a startup.
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg in 2010, before he took his company public.
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.
Chew met his now-wife, Vivian Kao, via email when they were both students at Harvard.
Shou Zi Chew and Vivian Kao attend The 2022 Met Gala.
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.
Chew was CFO of Xiaomi before joining Bytedance.
Shou Zi Chew and Xiaomi's CEO give thumbs up at the listing of Xiaomi at the Hong Kong Exchanges on July 9, 2018
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.
He became Xiaomi's international business president in 2019, too.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in Washington, DC on Tuesday, February 14, 2023.
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.
For a while, Chew was both the CEO of TikTok and the CFO of its parent company, ByteDance.
ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming
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.
Some government officials in the US and other countries remain concerned that TikTok's user data could be shared with the Chinese government.
The Biden administration has demanded that TikTok divest its American business from ByteDance or risk being banned.
Jacquelyn Martin, Pool
Donald Trump's administration issued executive orders designed to force ByteDance into divesting its TikTok US operations, though nothing ever happened.
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.
Now, Chew and TikTok are in the spotlight again as the company tries to stave off a looming potential ban.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, March 23, 2023.
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.
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.
On the heels of the bad news, Chew met with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago several days later.
Chew and Trump recently met.
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.
When he's not fighting efforts to ban TikTok, Chew makes appearances at some pretty high-profile events.
Shou Zi Chew leaves Congress on March 23.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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.
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 […]
TikTok owner ByteDance is now the biggest buyer of Nvidia AI chips in China.
Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images
US regulations bar China from directly acquiring Nvidia's powerful H100 GPUs.
That hasn't stopped ByteDance from becoming Nvidia's largest buyer in China.
The company is also working around the export ban by increasing computing capacity outside China.
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.
ByteDance and TikTok filed an emergency motion on Monday asking an appeals court to temporally block the law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless the social network divests from Chinese ownership by January 19. The companies are asking for the hold in order to give the Supreme Court a chance to assess the […]
President-elect Donald Trump's stance on a TikTok ban has changed over time, but his cabinet picks have been more resolute.
Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump once supported a US ban on TikTok.
Then, during the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said he would "save TikTok."
His cabinet picks might indicate what position he'll ultimately take once in office.
President-elect Donald Trump's views on whether TikTok, which a Chinese company owns, poses a threat to the United States have shifted 180 degrees.
Will they come full circle?
In April, lawmakers concerned about Chinese influence passed a law giving ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, a deadline of January 19 to sell its social media app to a non-Chinese company or face a nationwide ban. TikTok appealed, but on Friday, a federal court upheld the law, siding with the Biden administration's argument that the service poses a national security threat.
In 2020, Trump unsuccessfully sought to ban TikTok in the United States but has since had a change of heart. During the 2024 campaign, Trump said young people would "go crazy without it." Trump's own TikTok accounts generated millions of views.
Which side Trump ultimately lands on the issue could have a major impact on ByteDance and TikTok, which says it has over 170 million users in the United States. Even if the law is upheld after future appeals, Trump could choose not to enforce it during his presidency.
Trump's closest advisors, however, might have something to say about that. Some of Trump's top cabinet nominees support a TikTok ban.
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — Trump's nominee for secretary of state — called a ban a "win for America" earlier this year. Trump's pick for Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, also advocated for a TikTok ban in Project 2025, a road map for the first 180 days of a new Republican presidency that the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published in 2023.
Carr wrote in the plan that TikTok is part of a Beijing "foreign influence campaign by determining the news and information that the app feeds to millions of Americans."
Project 2025 refers to TikTok as "a tool of Chinese espionage" that is "highly addictive" and "especially popular with teenage girls."
"The ties between TikTok and the Chinese government are not loose, and they are not coincidental," the document reads.
John Ratcliffe, the former US director of national intelligence, is Trump's pick for CIA director. Ratcliffe, also an author of Project 2025, told Fox News in 2022 that he thinks TikTok is a "national security threat."
Govs. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Trump's pick for interior secretary, and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, the president-elect's choice for Homeland Security secretary, both previously banned the app from state-owned devices.
TikTok has denied accusations that it influences content inside the United States or is addictive to children.
A spokesperson for TikTok told Business Insider that the TikTok ban law was "conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people."
"The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," the spokesperson said.
Mitchell Green worked variously in investment banking, as an analyst with Bessemer Venture Partners, and for a hedge fund backed by Tiger Management before striking out on his own in 2011. Going it alone was seemingly the right move. Green now manages money for more than 700 individuals who have committed $5 billion to his […]
On Friday, a US appeals court upheld a federal law that could ban or force a sale of TikTok early next year.
Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act into law in April, and the US was soon after sued by TikTok and its Chinese owner, ByteDance, as well as a group of individual TikTok users in the US. These plaintiffs tried and failed to enjoin the attorney general from enforcing the law, which takes effect January 19, 2025—a day before Donald Trump's first day in office.
In the ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected all constitutional claims, including free speech claims that had notably blocked prior TikTok bans during Trump's last administration. In siding against TikTok and its fans, the court's decision likely surprised some law professors who had warned earlier this year that TikTok seemingly had a strong First Amendment defense.
ByteDance operates China's most popular chatbot, Doubao.
Greg Baker/Getty Images
ByteDance has sued a former intern for $1.1 million, per Chinese media reports.
The TikTok owner claims he sabotaged an AI model training project by modifying code.
The company has a chatbot similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, called Doubao.
TikTok owner ByteDance has filed a lawsuit seeking damages of $1.1 million against a former intern it has accused of sabotaging an AI training project, according to local media reports.
The lawsuit, filed in a Beijing district court, reportedly centers on claims that Tian Keyu, the ex-intern, deliberately tampered with code for the company's AI model training tasks.
ByteDance referenced the case in an internal disciplinary notice this month, The South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.
Multiple Chinese media outlets reported this week that ByteDance is seeking 8 million yuan, about $1.1 million, and a public apology.
Last month, ByteDance told the BBC in a statement that it fired Tian in August and that he was an intern in the technology team but did not work in its AI lab. The company added that his social media profile contained inaccuracies. Tian's LinkedIn profile states that he has been a research intern at ByteDance's VC team and AI lab since 2021.
The tech giant also said in its statement last month that reports of the former intern causing damage to about 8,000 specialist chips, called GPUs, and racking up losses amounting to millions of dollars were exaggerated.
ByteDance operates China's most popular chatbot, Doubao, which is similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
ByteDance and Tian didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
TikTok faces US ban
In the US, ByteDance faces a January 19 deadline to divest its TikTok stake to an approved buyer or shut down after Congress passed a law in April.
The US government claims it is a national security threat and officials have been concerned about its growing influence in the country. Some government officials are worried ByteDance could hand over sensitive data on its US users to the Chinese Communist Party.
However, President-elect Donald Trump has said he would try to save the app once in office.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is fighting for his company's future in the US.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.
TikTok could be pulled from US app stores as early as January 19.
Without a last-minute sale or presidential or Supreme Court intervention, TikTok's US future is dim.
Business Insider is tracking TikTok's battle for survival as its US divestment deadline nears.
TikTok could soon be gone from the US.
Congress passed a law in April that set a nine-month deadline for TikTok's owner, ByteDance, to divest from the app or be booted from US app stores. The US government is on track to force the app out on January 19, the day before Donald Trump takes office. There's a possibility that President Joe Biden could extend that deadline by 90 days, but he hasn't said he will.
So will a TikTok ban actually happen?
Many of the app's stakeholders are acting as if it won't. TikTok employees, business partners, and creators are going about their business largely as usual, even with a divestment deadline looming. Some may expect the ban attempt to fail, as it has in the past.
TikTok did not address the prospect of a ban at its Los Angeles creator summit in November.
Amanda Perelli/Business Insider
TikTok has faced threats of banishment at both the state and the federal level before, and judges have repeatedly struck down ban attempts following legal challenges.
It challenged the divest-or-ban law in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but the three-judge panel ruled against the company in December. That outcome was expected, as September oral arguments didn't go well for the company and judges in the DC Circuit tend to be deferential to Congress on issues of national security, even in cases where Americans' First Amendment rights are at stake, legal experts previously told Business Insider.
"The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States," the ruling says. "Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary's ability to gather data on people in the United States."
While there is bipartisan support in Congress for a TikTok ban, support for a ban is fading among the American public. In a Pew Research Center survey of US adults from July and August, about one in three respondents (32%) supported a government ban, down from 50% in March 2023.
If the courts don't save TikTok, will Trump?
On December 9, TikTok filed an emergency motion for an injunction to stop the ban until its "appeal of the decision by the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit is heard by the US Supreme Court." That motion was denied on Friday by the court, leaving it to the Supreme Court to decide TikTok's fate.
On Monday, TikTok filed an emergency request to the Supreme Court for an injunction against enforcement of the law. The court has agreed to hear oral arguments on January 10. Besides the Supreme Court, TikTok may have another path to survival.
Trump has said he would try to save TikTok once in office, a flip-flop from his position during his first presidential term. He met with TikTok's CEO Shou Chew on December 16, 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."
Legal experts previously told BI that Trump could try a few tactics to keep TikTok around, including telling his Justice Department not to enforce the divest-or-ban law or attempting to skirt it through strategic interpretations of its text. Both strategies would be tough to pull off, however.
"Because the law was enacted by Congress, I'm not sure how much wiggle room a future Trump administration would have to ignore it," G.S. Hans, a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, previously told BI.
TikTok's supporters have rallied in Washington, DC, to keep the app around.
Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Trump could also try to broker a sale of TikTok's US assets to a non-Chinese company, a remedy prescribed in the divest-or-ban law. ByteDance has previously said it wouldn't sell TikTok, but it could be the simplest option for keeping the app around in the US.
A TikTok sale seems to be the preferred path forward among some members of Congress. Rep. John Moolenaar, the chair of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, told BI in a statement that the Trump administration "will have a unique opportunity to broker an American takeover of the platform, allowing TikTok users to continue to enjoy a safer, better version of the app free from foreign adversary control."
The Chinese government may block ByteDance from selling TikTok's US assets, and a TikTok sale could become a bargaining chip in larger US-China trade negotiations.
Why TikTok is a main character in the US-China trade wars
Its owner, ByteDance, is based in China, a country the US has deemed a foreign adversary. This has sparked fears among some officials that the company could be compelled to hand over sensitive US user data from TikTok to the Chinese Communist Party. Some members of Congress have raised concerns that TikTok could be used as a CCP propaganda tool.
TikTok has previously said that it does not share information with the Chinese government and that its content-moderation efforts are run by a US-based team that "operates independently from China."
Chew has testified before Congress.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Other companies may also become targets of the divest-or-ban law
TikTok may not be the only company under threat come January.
ByteDance owns several other apps, such as its video-editing tool, CapCut, and Pinterest-like app, Lemon8, that could also be subject to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
The bill's text specifically names TikTok and ByteDance as covered companies. But its language is fairly broad and could affect any company that is owned by a foreign adversary and permits a user to "create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content" (i.e., social media).
The bill's framework excludes platforms where users "post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews," however, which suggests that the Chinese e-commerce platforms Shein and Temu would remain safe.
TikTok is now the go-to social network for more than a billion users, bringing it to the attention of 14 U.S. attorneys general, who recently announced they were suing the company over its negative impact on minors’ mental health, as well as for harvesting their data. A subsequent report indicated that the company’s own research […]
