• Lemon8, TikTok's sister app, is surging in popularity ahead of a possible TikTok ban.
• Lemon8 uses TikTok's algorithm and is owned by the same Chinese company, ByteDance.
• The Supreme Court will decide this month on the fate of the law that could ban TikTok — and Lemon8.

TikTok owner ByteDance's other social media company, Lemon8, is growing in popularity amid confusion over a possible TikTok ban in the United States.

This week, Lemon8 shot to the No. 1 spot for free apps on Apple's App Store.

What users might not realize is that the law that would ban TikTok, if it is held up by the Supreme Court and then enforced by the administration of President-elect Donald Trump, would also likely ban Lemon8.

Lemon8 is the "sister app" to TikTok. It's a social media platform for photo slideshows, more similar to Pinterest or Instagram than TikTok, which is an exclusively short video platform. Lemon8 uses the same algorithm as TikTok. It is now the No. 2 free app, beating out competitors like ChatGPT.

But, like TikTok, its future is tenuous.

Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in April. The law gives ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, until January 19 to sell TikTok. If a sale doesn't take place, TikTok will be banned in the United States.

TikTok filed a lawsuit in May, arguing that the law violates the First Amendment. The DC Circuit Court upheld the law on December 6. TikTok then filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on December 18. The court is expected to hear arguments on January 10.

Trump filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on December 27, asking the justices to pause the law until after his inauguration so he could "pursue a political resolution."

The law would also likely ban Lemon8. The bill's text specifically names TikTok and ByteDance as covered companies. However, its language is broad and could affect any company owned by a foreign "adversary" that permits users to "create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content."

Experts previously told Business Insider that Lemon8's success indicates that ByteDance is willing to introduce new apps to keep growing despite a TikTok ban.

"This is a huge business for ByteDance. They're not gonna go down without swinging," David Glancy, a professor at the Institute of World Politics, previously told BI.

Late Tuesday evening, a federal judge blocked tech lobbying group NetChoice’s challenge to California’s recently enacted law, SB 976, which prohibits companies from serving “addictive feeds” to minors. The effect of this decision is that beginning Wednesday, companies will be prohibited from serving an addictive feed to a California-based user they know to be a […]

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In the weeks before Donald Trump takes office, he has moved to delay a nationwide TikTok ban from taking effect until he has a chance to make a deal on his own terms that he believes could allow TikTok to continue operating in the US without posing a national security threat.

On Friday, Trump's lawyer filed a brief, urging the Supreme Court to stay enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that would either ban TikTok on January 19 or force TikTok to sell the company to prevent China's alleged covert control of content on the app.

The Supreme Court had previously denied TikTok's request for an injunction that would have delayed enforcement until Trump takes office, instead planning to rush a decision on whether the Act violates the First Amendment before the deadline hits.

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Attorneys representing President-elect Donald Trump have asked the Supreme Court to pause a law that would force TikTok-owner ByteDance to sell the short-form video app or see it banned from the United States. If the app isn’t sold, the ban is set to take effect in just a few weeks, on January 19. ByteDance is […]

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• Mark Cuban tried to invest in Musical.ly, the platform that would become TikTok.
• Cuban says the platform lost its spark, becoming "corporate."
• In an interview, Cuban said focusing on monetization often harms the user experience.

Mark Cuban tried to invest in TikTok's precursor years ago, but said the company turned him down.

Cuban told content creator and journalist Jules Terpak in an interview on her YouTube channel that he enjoyed using TikTok when it was called Musical.ly.

The platform rebranded to TikTok in 2017 when it was acquired by its current owners, ByteDance.

"I loved it because I could just turn it on and there would be 15,000 people live immediately that I could talk to," Cuban said of Musical.ly.

"It was insane. I loved it. And then, as it got into the dances and everything, it was fun."

Cuban told CNBC he tried to invest in Musical.ly but was unsuccessful because the company wasn't looking to raise more funds at the time.

Cuban told Terpak he thinks TikTok is less fun than it used to be and "more corporate."

He said that the dance-focused version of the app was losing billions of dollars, "and so at some point, they had to start trying to make some money."

"I liked it better when it was dances and music," Cuban said. "Now it's a business."

Cuban said TikTok's early beauty was that its algorithm served users with more of what they liked than any other platform.

"Now it's corporate," he said. "It's how many followers can you get and how can you engage those followers."

There's "a diminishing return" for users when platforms monetize, Cuban said, driven by business realities.

"At some point, if you're there to make money, you have to figure out how to make money," he said.

Cuban's thoughts hit on an increasing frustration many users have with TikTok, where they are flooded with ads and many see the platform as a pseudo-shopping channel.

Cuban has a TikTok account himself, where he has 1.1 million followers — though he doesn't post often.

In 2023, he faced some backlash for a "tip of the day" on making money, in which he told people to cut back on extra lattes and streaming services.

"You want to put that in a money market account earning five, maybe more, percent and watch that sucker grow," he said. "That'll make you feel a whole lot better than that extra latte that you had that day."

Some criticized the advice for being unrealistic and out of touch with the majority of people.

Cuban didn't address the critics, only posting another tip of the day to "be nice" and "smile."

According to Bloomberg, Cuban has a net worth of around $8 billion. In 1990, he sold his first tech company, MicroSolutions, for $6 million and went on to invest in several successful businesses through "Shark Tank."

In October, Cuban announced he would be leaving "Shark Tank" after its 16th season to spend more time with his kids.

• In less than a month, TikTok could be pulled from US app stores due to a federal divest-or-ban law.
• Merchants who sell on TikTok Shop may struggle to find an alternative if the ban goes through.
• TikTok Shop offers a unique blend of social tools, e-commerce tech, and a large audience.

If TikTok is pulled from US app stores in January due to a divest-or-ban law, many of its creators will be fine. However, its e-commerce sellers may have a rougher road ahead.

Many TikTok creators have spent years building up audiences on similar apps using features like YouTube shorts and Instagram reels. For some merchants who sell goods on TikTok Shop, there isn't an obvious alternative.

"With TikTok, we've had the first real foray into building an ecosystem that ties in entertainment and live shopping together; a full-service ecosystem that brings in the creators, the affiliates, the products, and the brands altogether," Julian Reis, CEO of the social-commerce agency SuperOrdinary, told Business Insider. "Previously we had a lot of smaller platforms and smaller surface layer applications that were enabling live shopping on other people's platforms."

Other platforms, like the live-shopping app Whatnot or affiliate-marketing platform LTK, offer robust tools for social commerce. Flip built an app that's basically a shopping-only version of TikTok. Shopify offers a variety of tools for merchants to integrate into social apps, and Meta made a deal with Amazon in 2023 to make Instagram and Facebook posts more shoppable.

But none of these products offers the same breadth of services in one place as TikTok. TikTok Shop even has its own app store, bringing it closer to super-app status.

TikTok invested heavily in social-shopping tech before it was obvious the move would pay off in the US. TikTok's push into e-commerce initially angered many users, but the company continued to lean into the initiative as it sought to train its audience to buy in a social feed. It also built out infrastructure, such as adding six warehouses in the US to support order fulfillment and logistics, its head of US operations Nico Le Bourgeois told BI in October. That level of investment and boldness is tough to replicate.

"We are on every platform, but TikTok is the primary platform because they're by far the most advanced social commerce marketplace that we have in the US today," Max Benator, the CEO of the social-shopping firm Orca, told BI.

TikTok has shown a unique commitment to making social commerce grow in the US. While some of its peers have pulled back on shopping features, TikTok has charged forward. Its drive to make social shopping take off was likely influenced by the success of its Chinese sister app Douyin, which drives billions in annual sales. The effort appears to have turned a corner, and TikTok is now pulling in billions in sales, including over $100 million on Black Friday alone.

Right now, TikTok is central to the social-shopping marketplace in the US. But if the app is banned next month — an outcome it's challenging before the Supreme Court — a competitor app like Instagram or YouTube might try to replicate some of its efforts to fill the void.

"Once the consumer habit is to buy through livestreams, it really doesn't matter what platform they use," William August, CEO of Outlandish, a company that works with TikTok Shop brands and others on livestream selling, told BI in November. "If TikTok does get banned, I don't think these people are just going to stop shopping through livestreams. I think they're going to move to another platform."

Immigration attorney Sophie Alcorn is sharing this advice with her high-tech clientele: Get back to the US before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The new year brings Trump's return to Washington, and with it, immigration lawyers like Alcorn say they're fielding nonstop calls from tech worker clients to discuss policy changes that may take place under the second Trump administration. Alcorn said she's helping clients file petitions and extensions under current policies and is telling those with valid visas to consider returning to the country from temporary travel overseas before Trump takes office out of an abundance of caution.

Trump swept to victory on promises to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally, but he's offered few hints into how he will shape a legal immigration system that pipes highly educated foreign workers into tech jobs.

During his first term, Trump signed a series of executive orders that limited access to many work visa types, impacting an important source of technical talent, according to conversations with four immigration attorneys.

They expect Trump to run some of those plays again. "A storm is coming," said Jason Finkelman of Finkelman Law, "and this time, we know exactly what it's going to bring."

A travel ban 2.0 could limit access for the tech talent pool

In the first week of his first term, Trump signed an executive order restricting travel from seven countries with large Muslim populations, virtually blocking immigration from those nations. It also prevented professionals from traveling out of the country for work or personal reasons because they feared they would be unable to return.

In a September speech prior to the election, Trump said he would reinstate his "famous travel ban" and expand it to prevent refugees from Gaza from entering the country.

The last travel ban sparked outcries from tech firms that rely on foreigners with special expertise to fill their ranks and help shape their technologies. Hundreds of executives and employees such as Sam Altman and Sergey Brin converged on San Francisco International Airport in protest, while Box CEO Aaron Levie and the founders of Lyft pledged their support to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the order.

The travel ban faced a series of challenges in the lower courts and didn't take full effect until the Supreme Court upheld the order more than a year after Trump signed it.

"I think its possible that Trump may attempt to impose travel bans from certain countries just as he did when he initially tried to implement travel restrictions," said Jason Finkelman, who's based in Austin. "While I think travel bans will likely face challenges in the courts it may lead to issues of US employers being restricted from hiring and retaining the foreign talent they need for their operations."

Elizabeth Goss, who runs her own law practice in Boston, and Justin Parsons, a partner at Erickson Immigration Group's office in Arlington, Virginia, said they believed a travel ban 2.0 would affect different countries this time around, based on this administration's priorities.

"The wildcard for me," said Parsons, "is what happens to China." The president-elect has vowed to enact higher tariffs on Chinese goods, in an effort to hobble the world's second-largest economy. Parsons has asked himself if Trump would ban travel from China to further these efforts.

Trump could decrease access to a commonly used visa type by tech companies

The tech sector is the biggest beneficiary of the H-1B visa, which allows employers to fill specialty roles with highly educated foreign workers. Last year, more than half of these visas went to workers in computer-related roles, according to data from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

During Trump's first term, government data shows that denial rates for new employees and requests for further evidence of eligibility surged. In 2020, the Trump administration temporarily paused the issuance of new green cards and many work visa types, arguing that this would protect American jobs during a pandemic decline in employment.

The Biden administration has moved to reverse some of these policies and facilitate the processing of work-related visas. In December, the White House published new regulations that allow the immigration agency to process applications more quickly for most individuals who had previously been approved for an H-1B visa.

Jason Finkelman said the new rules "give predictability to employers and foreign nationals on the extensions of their visa petitions when there has been no change in the job duties or the employer." He added that it's plausible Trump can withdraw the regulations once he takes office, however.

Elizabeth Goss offered a more optimistic outlook. She suggested that if Elon Musk has Trump's ear, he might be able to persuade the president to leave the program untouched or even expand the number of visas issued, though such a move hasn't been made since President Bill Clinton raised the limit at the top of the dot-com bubble.

Canadians could be turned away

Historically, Canadians have had access to temporary work visa types, the L-1 and the TN, which allowed them to move across the border with less friction. However, according to Justin Parsons, they could face new headwinds under Trump.

Tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have relied heavily on the L-1 visa to transfer an executive or manager from one of their foreign offices to one of their domestic offices. Canadians have been able to apply for this visa at an international airport or border station without having to file a petition with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, a far more cumbersome process.

In 2017, under the Trump administration, some border agents began refusing to process or renew work visas for Canadians already working in the country, Parsons said. The border agents would challenge their eligibility over what Parsons described as arbitrary reasons, or direct them to the immigration agency. This delayed workers who were traveling home from returning.

At the time, Parsons also observed Canadian clients on the TN visa — a temporary work visa for Canadians and Mexicans created under the North American Free Trade Agreement — come under increased scrutiny at the border.

Parsons expressed concern for Canadians that the probing measures might be reintroduced and potentially intensified under Trump's second term.

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 TikTok's case against a forced sale or ban.
• It may be TikTok's last hope at staying in the US, as it lost its case in the DC Circuit.
• President-elect Donald Trump may also try to save TikTok, though his options are limited.

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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• TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is the public face of the company, rallying its fans and testifying before Congress.
• He's 41 years old, went to Harvard Business School, and interned at Facebook when it was a startup.
• He met with president-elect Donald Trump recently as he continues his fight to avoid a TikTok ban in the US.

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:

Chew worked for Facebook when it was still a startup.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In a TikTok last March, Chew announced the company has amassed 150 million monthly active users in the US and broached the subject of the ban threats.

"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.

Now, Chew and TikTok are in the spotlight again as the company tries to stave off a looming potential ban.

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.

On the heels of the bad news, Chew met with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago several days later.

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.

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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• Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said longevity is advancing so much that 60 is the new 40.
• While anti-aging science can be high-tech, what Cuban has shared about his own routine is simple.
• His low-cost longevity habits include walking regularly, eating vegetarian, and taking vitamins.

Mark Cuban isn't ready to act his age.

Speaking in the new anti-aging science documentary "Longevity Hackers" (streaming on Amazon and Apple TV) the billionaire businessman of "Shark Tank" fame said he feels decades younger than his biological age of 66.

"60s are the new 40s," Cuban said."You see guys my age in their 60s that can look good, can be fit, and not be limited in terms of things that they do."

While some entrepreneurs are spending millions on anti-aging routines, what we know about Cuban's routine is relatively simple — and doesn't cost much to follow.

Here's what Cuban has said about the diet, exercise, and supplements that keep him feeling youthful.

"If I never had to look in the mirror, I'd think I was 35," he said.

He walks as much as possible — including on the set of 'Shark Tank'

Exercise has been a major part of Cuban's routine for years, and it's crucial to healthy aging.

"I actually work out more now than I did 10 years ago or 15 years ago because my body needs it more," he said.

The entrepreneur said he typically spends between 45 to 90 minutes in the gym, including plenty of cardio.

He also stays moving whenever possible. While Cuban is not slated to star on "Shark Tank" in 2025, he said previous seasons of the show were a great opportunity to get his steps in.

"Everybody else is taking the carts, the set is .35 miles away, and I'm walking back and forth so I'm walking two miles a day while we're shooting Shark Tank," he said.

Walking more is also linked to a longer, healthier life, and as little as 500 extra steps a day can make a difference, according to research.

He's a vegetarian

Cuban has followed a vegetarian diet since 2019.

"When you get older, food becomes more like medicine where you need the nutrients in order to be able to be your best self," he said.

Plant-based diets rich in nutrient-dense foods like greens, whole grains, nuts, and beans are linked to a longer life and lower risk of chronic diseases.

"What I eat really makes a difference in how everything in my body operates," Cuban said.

Cuban said he enjoys plant-based food — and he's invested in plenty of vegan and vegetarian food companies — but the downside is that it can make it tricky to dine out or attend events.

"I love being vegetarian. It can be weird when you're with a bunch of guys going to a steakhouse," he said.

He supplements with vitamin D and melatonin

Cuban rounds out his nutritional needs with daily supplements to reduce inflammation and improve sleep, he previously told Business Insider.

He supplements melatonin, a hormone naturally produced by the body to regulate its internal clock.

Cuban also takes vitamins D and E, both of which are linked to healthy aging. Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which is crucial for healthy bones, while bolstering the immune system to lower the risk of cancer. Vitamin E also supports the immune system and lowers inflammation, reducing the stress on cells to potentially stave off age-related damage.

He said being able to invest in his health with simple, daily habits has paid dividends by allowing him to keep up with the activities in his life that matter.

"To me, aging is just being who are you regardless of what the number is," Cuban said.

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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• Aritificial Intelligence is likely to disrupt the global workforce, research shows.
• Mark Cuban believes impacted jobs will be those that require simple yes or no decisions.
• Cuban told BI that the impact on a company's workforce will depend on how well AI is implemented.

Billionaire Mark Cuban doesn't believe artificial intelligence will devastate white-collar work.

In an interview published Thursday on "The Weekly Show with John Stewart," Cuban said he believes the fast-advancing technology will not impact jobs that require workers to think.

"So if your job is answering the question, 'yes or no,' all the time — AI is going to have an impact," he said. "If your job requires you to think — AI won't have much of an impact."

Cuban, the CEO of Cost Plus Drugs, an online prescription service, said workers must supervise AI and ensure that the data the models are being trained on and the resulting output are correct.

"It takes intellectual capacity. So somebody who understands what the goal is, somebody who's been doing this for years, has got to be able to input feedback on everything that the models collect and are trained on," he said. "You don't just assume the model knows everything. You want somebody to check — to grade their responses — and make corrections."

AI's recent advancement has raised existential questions on the future of work.

The World Economic Forum reported in 2023 that employers expected 44% of workers' skills to be "disrupted" within five years, requiring a massive effort on worker retraining.

A McKinsey study, however, found that AI won't decimate white-collar roles such as those in legal or finance. Instead, AI can potentially enhance those jobs in the long term by automating about 30% of overall hours worked in the US.

Cuban told Business Insider in an email that AI's impact on any company's workforce numbers will be on a case-by-case basis.

"Every company is different," he said. "But the biggest determinant is how well the company can implement AI."