TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on Tuesday brushed off Montana’s recent move to ban TikTok in the state, saying the company is “confident” it will “prevail” as it sues Montana over the new law.
“We believe that the Montana bill that was recently passed is simply unconstitutional,” Chew said in an interview with Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum.
“We very recently filed a lawsuit to challenge this in the courts. And we are confident that we will prevail.”
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) signed legislation banning TikTok last week, making it the first state to prohibit the video-sharing app amid concerns about data privacy and its China-based parent company ByteDance. The law is set to go into effect on January 1.
TikTok moved quickly to sue Montana’s attorney general over the law.
“We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana. We believe our legal challenge will prevail based on an exceedingly strong set of precedents and facts,” the company’s communications team said on Twitter Monday.