LightShed Partners co-founder Rich Greenfield remains convinced that TikTok will continue to operate in the United States and that too under the ownership of China-based ByteDance.
His comment follows an announcement from the Biden Administration that it doesn’t plan on enforcing the ban on TikTok that was originally due to go into effect on Sunday – leaving the matter of enforcement to the incoming government of Donald Trump.
And recent developments have made it clear that Trump “likes TikTok and he’s going to save it,” Greenfield said in an interview with CNBC on Friday.
What could Trump do to save TikTok?
Rich Greenfield expects Donald Trump to invoke Article 2 which states “In international or foreign affairs, the president’s powers supersede Congress.”
The President-elect will designate TikTok a foreign affair to “put an executive order, saying this [congressional ban] does not apply,” he added this morning on “Squawk Box”.
Note that Shou Zi Chew – the chief executive of TikTok has already disclosed plans to attend Trump’s inauguration.
On Monday, he’ll be sitting on the dais with the President-elect.
This suggests Donald Trump “wants TikTok to exist, he uses it very aggressively,” according to LightShed’s Greenfield.
Is TikTok a national security threat?
Speaking with Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC today, the co-founder of LightShed Partners also argued that TikTok may not be a national security risk after all – at least for now.
He based his view on the government’s filings that suggest there’s no evidence of “manipulation of the algorithm or spying on US citizens to date by China.”
Despite broader security concerns, Americans seem to be in the same league as Donald Trump.
The renowned platform for short videos has well over 100 million monthly active users in the United States – a number that’s expected to surpass 120 million by 2027.
TikTok generates billions of dollars worth of revenue every year from the US as well.
Who could benefit if TikTok is banned?
On the flip side, if TikTok does indeed shut down in the US – a bunch of other social platforms could meaningfully benefit over the long term, as per Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak.
These include Pinterest, Snap, Reddit, and even the tech titans like Meta Platforms and Alphabet Inc.
The Facebook owner could see up to a 60 cents boost to its per-share earnings in 2026 and YouTube could benefit from as much as $750 million in incremental revenue for every 10% of TikTok’s US time either of them captures.
Morgan Stanley expects advertising software companies AppLovin and Trade Desk to benefit from a US ban on TikTok as well. Shares of the former have already soared more than 700% since the start of 2024.
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