Tan, who declined to say whether he personally supports the TikTok ban, believes the central issue is enforcement. “There is a federal law that says the TikTok app should not be on your store, and I can see TikTok is on the app store,” he says of Google. “Congress passed the law, and the Supreme Court upheld it. It’s not debatable.”

In his view, Google is openly ignoring the law, and he wants to understand the legal basis for that decision, as well as the extent to which shareholders should be worried about Google’s potential liability. “I felt I should join the someones who are doing something,” Tan says.

Books and Records

Tan has a history of using records requests and litigation to investigate and combat what he views as injustices. In 2019, he sued a New Hampshire hotel for allegedly violating anti-discrimination laws by barring bookings from adults under 21 years old. Tan says he dropped the case after the hotel amended its policy.

This February, Tan filed a public records request with the US Department of Justice seeking copies of letters that Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly sent to companies such as Google and Apple advising them that they would not be held liable for continuing to distribute TikTok. After the attorney general’s office claimed it did not have records matching Tan’s request, he took the Department of Justice to court. (The New York Times has filed a similar lawsuit.) In a court filing, the Just...