Jeff Yass, the Republican mega-donor whose investment company reportedly owns about 15% of ByteDance, is the biggest donor to the conservative organization Club for Growth, which is currently paying former senior Trump aide Kellyanne Conway to advocate for TikTok in Congress.
Conway has held at least 10 meetings with lawmakers in recent months about TikTok, according to a Politico report on Monday. She has also spoken to Donald Trump about the importance of defending the app, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
Former senior Trump aide Kellyanne Conway at the Republican National Convention in 2020. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
Donald Trump’s newfound support of TikTok, and by extension its Chinese owner ByteDance ByteDance, came soon after Joe Biden said he’d sign legislation making its way through Congress that could ban the app.
It also came after the former president met with the Republican mega-donor, Jeff Yass, who reportedly has a major financial stake in the popular social media platform.
Yass’s hedge fund, Susquehanna International Group, took a stake in ByteDance in 2012 estimated by the Wall Street Journal last year at about 15%, with Yass personally owning 7%, valued at $21bn.
Soon after the meeting at a Club for Growth donor retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this month, Trump wrote on Truth Social:
If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better.
Donald Trump, who as president supported calls to ban TikTok, came out earlier this week in favor of the app.
“There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump told CNBC on Monday, adding:
There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok you’re going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media.
Trump was suspended and then permanently banned from Meta-owned Facebook soon after the 6 January 2021 riots “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”, though he was allowed back approximately two years later.
Speaking to CNBC, Trump said that, while he still believes TikTok is a national security risk, other apps are a risk as well, and singled out the Meta-owned platform.
I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.
Last week, he said banning TikTok would help “Facebook and Zuckerschmuck double their business”, referring to Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
Good morning US politics readers. The House is expected to vote on a bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the company, or face a nationwide ban.
House leadership has scheduled a vote for 10am ET this morning under fast-track rules that require support by two-thirds of House members for the measure to pass. The bill is expected to pass with widespread bipartisan support but its fate is unclear in the Senate, where it will likely need support from at least 60 senators to make it across the finish line.
If passed, it would require ByteDance to divest TikTok, an app used by about 150 million Americans, or face a ban on US app stores and web hosting services, banning users from accessing the platform, within six months. Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill, while Donald Trump – who as president supported calls to ban the app – has recently voiced opposition to the effort.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
Joe Biden and Donald Trump formally clinched their respective party’s nominations last night, soldidifying a rematch a majority of voters aren’t looking forward to.
11am. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, will hold his weekly press conference.
11.15am. Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, will meet with the EU high representative, Josep Borrell.
1pm. Blinken will participate in a virtual ministerial session on humanitarian assistance for Gaza.
2.45pm. Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, will travel to Kentucky to tour Advanced Nano Products’s Elizabethtown battery facility and speak. Kentucky governor, Andy Beshear, will join her.
4pm. Biden will travel to Milwaukee in the swing state of Wisconsin, to speak about the economy and jobs. The president will headline a campaign event in Milwaukee at 4.50pm.
