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.