TikTok on Tuesday sought to assure its U.S. employees that they will still have jobs next week even if the Supreme Court upholds a law that would see the video app banned in the United States on Sunday.
The message is a shift in tone from TikTok, which has otherwise said it was confident that it would emerge victorious from its legal challenge to the law. It also shows the company is not planning to leave the United States in the near term, even if it is banned.
TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is fighting a law from last year that would ban the app unless its U.S. operations are sold to a non-Chinese owner. TikTok sent a message to its staff Tuesday acknowledging the uncertainty around the coming decision and assuring employees that they would continue to be paid. The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision before the law takes effect Sunday.
“Your employment, pay and benefits are secure, and our offices will remain open, even if this situation hasn’t been resolved before the January 19 deadline,” wrote Nicky Raghavan, TikTok’s global head of human resources, in the message, which was obtained by The New York Times. “The bill is not written in a way that impacts the entities through which you are employed, only the U.S. user experience.”
The law will penalize app stores and internet hosting services for distributing or updating the TikTok app, effectively banning the platform. It would not force the closure of TikTok offices in the United States.
The message also noted: “Our leadership team remains laser focused on planning for various scenarios and continuing to plan the way forward.”
The note, which praised employees for their “resilience and dedication,” was one of the company’s few internal acknowledgments of its legal battle in recent months. Despite the existential threat facing TikTok, there has been little acknowledgment inside the company that it might soon be banned in the United States, former employees told The New York Times in November. Executives have, at times, made light of the situation, suggesting in one all-hands meeting that it would one day be the subject of a Hollywood film, some of them said.
TikTok did not immediately respond to an inquiry about its latest staff count in the United States, but the message was sent to an internal “U.S. Team News” channel with more than 13,000 employees. TikTok has previously said it has more than 7,000 U.S. employees.
“As we await the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of January 19, we know you have a lot of questions and wish we could provide a clear road map of next steps,” Ms. Raghavan wrote. “We know it’s unsettling to not know exactly what happens next.”
