Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures attends day three of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013 at the San Francisco Design Center on September 11, 2013 in San Francisco, California.
Steve Jennings | Getty Images
A major Republican donor threatened on Tuesday to cut campaign contributions to members of Congress unless they vote for a bill that could effectively ban TikTok in the United States.
“Will never fund Republican candidates or leadership PACs (or the NRSC) run by Republicans who vote against TikTok legislation,” venture capitalist Keith Rabois wrote on X.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives is expected to pass a bill that would force TikTok’s parent company, China-based ByteDance, to sell the social media platform. Proponents of the bill say ByteDance’s continued ownership of TikTok and its holdings of user data pose a national security threat to the United States.
“Supporting the TikTok bill is an IQ test” for members of Congress, Rabois wrote in an email to CNBC.
According to a Federal Election Commission filing, Rabois donated $500,000 in February to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee that supports Republican candidates in the House of Representatives.
Rabois’ threat could have significant influence on Republican lawmakers who are still undecided about whether to support the bill.
More about the TikTok ban law
For some supporters of the bill, that political calculus became even more complicated last week when former President Donald Trump announced he opposed the measure. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was joined by Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk, who also criticized the legislation.
The bill’s prospects in the Senate were still uncertain Tuesday.
“In the Senate, it will be up to the Democratic leader [Chuck Schumer] to get it to the ground. If he does that, we will have a clear voting record of where every senator stands on this issue, Rabois told CNBC.
If the bill passes the Senate and becomes law, ByteDance would have just six months to sell TikTok before the app is banned from American app stores and web hosting sites.
Rabois, managing director of Khosla Ventures, donated a total of just over $41,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee last year. He also donated over $120,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House counterpart to the NRSC.
Rabois said whether or not he continues to support the NRCC will depend in part on how Republican leadership handles the upcoming vote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of La. has signaled he plans to vote for the measure, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise called it a “critical national security bill.”
Republican politician Tom Emmer also supports the legislation, claiming in March 2023 that TikTok is “nothing more than a CCP spy app that collects sensitive information from 150 million American users that can then be exploited by the Chinese government.”
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2024-03-12 22:13:18
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