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TikTok could be banned in the U.S. as soon as January, and while President-elect Donald Trump has opposed the prohibition, it’s unclear if he can stop it.
President Joe Biden signed the ban in April, requiring ByteDance—TikTok’s China-based parent company—to sell the platform by January or be banned from U.S. app stores, as lawmakers expressed national security concerns. The legislation is facing legal challenges from TikTok and ByteDance.
While Trump signed an executive order back in 2020 that would have functionally outlawed the app, that order was blocked in court, and he has changed his tune. But it may be hard for him to interfere since TikTok’s deadline to sell is one day before his inauguration.
Federal Reserve Bank Chair Jerome Powell (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the second consecutive time Thursday, but some economists worry about the path of interest rates heading into next year given what President-elect Donald Trump has said regarding potential policies. The central bank announced it cut the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 4.5% to 4.75%, the lowest level since March 2023, after announcing the first rate cut since March 2020 in September.
MORE: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters Thursday he would not step down from his appointed position if Donald Trump asked him to. Trump has called for the chairman’s firing on multiple occasions, though he first appointed Powell in 2017, but an unnamed senior Trump adviser told CNN that Trump will likely not try to remove Powell during the rest of his term, which ends in 2026.
The defense tech sector is a key winner with Trump’s victory, with much of the enthusiasm centering around the growing influence of Elon Musk on White House policies. With Musk’s input, Silicon Valley defense leaders believe Trump will upend and reallocate the $800 billion Department of Defense budget, though his administration may not be all upside, as Trump has repeatedly suggested ending military support for Ukraine, which could scuttle some contracting opportunities for startups, according to one venture capitalist.
Donald Trump and Czech billionaire Andrej Babis during a White House visit in 2019, when Trump was president and Babis was prime minister of the Czech........