TikTok is one of the tech companies that could be most impacted by the outcome of the US elections. But as the election result looms, employees there found themselves surprisingly disengaged from the high-level political drama that could decide the app’s fate.
A San Jose-based product manager, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, says he was more worried about the TikTok ban before he joined the company earlier this year than now. He claims his colleagues rarely bring up the topic, and his team plans future product features in the app as if there’s no ban taking place soon.
“I feel indifferent now,” he says. “There’s little you can do as an ordinary employee, and everyone thinks that way, so the result is business as usual.”
WIRED talked to half a dozen employees at TikTok and its parent company ByteDance on the condition of anonymity, and all of them report very little, if any, discussion of US elections or politics among their ranks.
While outsiders speculate about the app’s potential demise, US-based TikTok employees say discussions of the ban happen more with their international counterparts or with non-ByteDance friends. “There’s almost a consensus not to talk about this thing. Very occasionally, some of us might say that maybe it’s time to jump ship, but those discussions rarely come up,” the TikTok product manager says.
In April, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) was signed into law, requiring that TikTok sell its US operation to a domestic buyer or be banned. But months later, the topic mostly slipped out of news headlines even as politicians kept talking about China leading to the elections.
So far, Kamala Harris has not made any comment about what she would do to TikTok as US president, but experts expect her to more or less carry out the Biden administration’s tech policy, including following through on the PAFACA Act.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, publicly backtracked his 2020 stance on banning the app after reportedly being lobbied by Jeff Yass, a billionaire ByteDance investor. Most recently, Trump said in a September campaign video that “for all of those who want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump.” Yet he didn’t make saving TikTok a core talking point on his campaign stops, and people aren’t sure if he would uphold his latest opinion should he be elected.
TikTok itself has maintained a neutral stance without voicing support for either candidate. TikTok didn’t immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
TikTok employees’ indifference to the presidential election is also a result of neither candidate representing a vastly better future of the company. “In the long term, neither of them will favor TikTok, because TikTok can’t escape its original sin of being a Chinese company,” says a ByteDance research scientist based in San Jose.
Employees at TikTok and ByteDance claim they are talking much less about the ban now compared to in April, when the US government’s order for ByteDance to divest TikTok’s business was first issued.
The research scientist says colleagues who were really worried about losing their jobs might have already left the company instead of waiting around. “Starting in the Trump era, there have been several rounds of news about [TikTok] getting banned, but it still survived till now. It’s like crying wolf—once people have experienced it many times, they become less sensitive to it,” he says.
The lack of anxiety also comes from the belief that their job security isn’t immediately at stake, he says. Most employees WIRED talked to don’t see a layoff happening soon, as they believe the court battle around the ban may take months, if not years, to conclude. And they say they will really start to worry about it when push comes to shove.
They are right that it might still take a few more months for TikTok’s fate to settle. The PAFACA Act requires the ban—if there’s no divestiture—to take place in January, with a potential 90-day grace period granted by the US president. However, since TikTok sued the federal government to appeal the ban, the case is currently being decided by the Court of Appeals in Washington, DC. If it loses, it is expected to attempt to take the case to the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court picks up the case, it could mean a decision is delayed until as late as summer 2025, says Alan Rozenshtein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School. “The court could not take the case, and the law is upheld, but it’s such a big issue: It affects 170 million Americans. It’s a core First Amendment question,” he says. “Also the Supreme Court has shown in the last few years that it cares about these digital First Amendment cases.”
Legal experts also say that even if the new president wanted to save TikTok, there’s not much they can do.
Four years ago, Trump’s TikTok ban executive order was blocked in court after the presidency changed hands. It’s natural to draw a comparison between what’s happening then and now, but the situation is quite different.
In 2020, Congress wasn’t on board with the idea of a TikTok ban, but it passed the PAFACA bill with overwhelming support this year, making it hard for the new president to get support to undo it.
“The Democrats and the Republicans, for their own distinct reasons, are very much against Big Tech, which includes not being very much in favor of Tiktok,” says Seth Berenzweig, a lawyer and managing partner of Berenzweig Leonard. If he is elected and attempts to reverse the ban, Trump will be politically unsuccessful, he says.
Rozenshtein points to a clause in the law that asks the president to determine whether the app is “no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary” and doesn’t have to be banned. It could give Trump some cover to interfere in enforcing the ban—assuming he doesn’t change his mind again.
Even if a ban does shutter TikTok in the US, employees say they are either confident of finding a job in the tech sector soon or believe ByteDance will take care of their jobs—transferring them to non-TikTok teams or offices outside the US.
“TikTok is going to keep its offices in North America, either to keep attracting talent or to show their globalization efforts,” says the ByteDance research scientist. “The office may get smaller or recruit less people after the ban, but I think a lot of people won’t feel the impact.”
