President Donald Trump on Monday returned to TikTok, weeks after the White House unveiled a preliminary deal seeking to keep the popular social media platform operational in the United States.
At the beginning of the year, TikTok briefly went dark amid unease that the Chinese-owned app poses a national security risk due to concerns that Beijing’s communist government has eyes on millions of American users’ data. Trump has fought to keep the app alive by divesting the platform of Chinese ownership, frequently crediting the role it played in fostering his connections with young voters during his 2024 presidential campaign.
This week, Trump sent a message to young people in his first post to TikTok since just before winning reelection last November.
“To all of those young people of TikTok: I saved TikTok, so you owe me big, and now you’re looking at me in the Oval Office,” Trump said in a message from the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.
“Someday, one of you is going to be sitting right at this desk, and you’re going to be doing a great job also,” he continued.
Trump has come full circle on TikTok since first seeking to ban the app during his first term in office in 2020. At the time, he cited national security concerns as the basis for the move. Congress echoed those sentiments, passing a law in 2024 under the Biden administration that ordered TikTok to divest of Chinese ownership under ByteDance by Jan. 19, 2025, or face a nationwide ban.
However, Trump has since asserted confidence that national security concerns can be resolved by creating an American spinoff of TikTok. After the app went dark shortly before he assumed office in January, Trump signed an executive order granting TikTok an extension on the timeline to find a U.S. buyer.
In the months since, the White House has repeatedly issued similar orders granting further extensions to stall the ban as Trump and U.S. business leaders seek to hash out a deal with TikTok and Beijing. The president signed the latest of those executive orders weeks ago, just before he announced a deal had been reached with China, allowing for a joint operation of U.S. investors that dilutes ByteDance’s share of power over the social media platform.
“There was some resistance on the Chinese side, but the fundamental thing that we wanted to accomplish is that we wanted to keep TikTok operating,” Vice President JD Vance said in remarks regarding the deal. “But we also wanted to make sure that we protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law. Both because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s a legal requirement of the law that was passed last year by Congress.”
TRUMP DELAYS TIKTOK BAN UNTIL DECEMBER AFTER ANNOUNCING DEAL WITH CHINA
“This deal really does mean that Americans can use TikTok, but actually use it with more confidence than they had in the past, because their data is going to be secure and it’s not going to be used as a propaganda weapon against our fellow citizens,” he continued.
ByteDance has yet to confirm the deal, and the White House hasn’t released details.