TikTok Owner Spending Millions on D.C. Lobbying

ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese Communist Party–linked parent company, spent a record $2.14 million on Washington lobbying efforts from April 1 to June 30, according to a new mandatory lobbying disclosure filed last night. That is the largest sum that ByteDance’s lobbying team has spent in a quarter, and it comes as the besieged tech company fights suspicions that its links to China’s security state pose a threat to U.S. national security.

The revelation is likely to raise concern about Chinese government–linked efforts to buy access to the U.S. political system, via former American government officials, at a pivotal moment for the TikTok app. Despite ByteDance’s extensively documented relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, its U.S. lobbying team registers under the law for domestic lobbyists, instead of under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

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Jimmy Quinn

Jimmy Quinn is the former national security correspondent for National Review.

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ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese Communist Party–linked parent company, spent a record $2.14 million on Washington lobbying efforts from April 1 to June 30, according to a new mandatory lobbying disclosure filed last night. That is the largest sum that ByteDance’s lobbying team has spent in a quarter, and it comes as the besieged tech company fights suspicions that its links to China’s security state pose a threat to U.S. national security.

The revelation is likely to raise concern about Chinese government–linked efforts to buy access to the U.S. political system, via former American government officials, at a pivotal moment for the TikTok app. Despite ByteDance’s extensively documented relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, its U.S. lobbying team registers under the law for domestic lobbyists, instead of under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).