President Joe Biden’s signing of a law aimed at compelling ByteDance to divest its interest in TikTok, or risk a ban, has set the stage for a complicated legal landscape. The current deal deadline is September 17. Despite this, the Trump administration has launched a TikTok account under the handle @WhiteHouse, which debuted its first video on Tuesday, focusing on Trump’s accomplishments.
Until now, TikTok has sustained just a single day’s shutdown within the United States, with the impact of the ban postponed multiple times. Initially, in January when Trump took office, an executive order extended the enforcement delay for 75 days. This was followed by another postponement in April due to the collapse of a potential deal linked to Trump’s stringent tariffs on China. A further delay occurred in June, when Trump indicated that he believed there was an openness to negotiations from Chinese President Xi Jinping if a suitable buyer could be found.
During an earlier attempt to ban TikTok in 2020, Trump’s position softened considerably amid his re-election campaign after his team recognized the substantial number of supporters he had on the platform. In the lead-up to the 2024 elections, the Trump campaign established its own official account, @TeamTrump, which rapidly gained traction, surpassing views on content posted by former Vice President Kamala Harris’s now-inactive campaign account—2.8 billion views compared to 2.2 billion, according to journalist Kyle Tharp. A digital strategist associated with the campaign highlighted Trump’s past as a reality TV personality as a key factor in his ability to craft engaging and viral content, noting, “TikTok is primarily an entertainment app, and our usage of it was just significantly more savvy than [the Democrats].”
While the legality behind a potential TikTok ban and its motivations are under scrutiny, the Trump administration seems to be finding strategic value in its presence on the platform. “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” Trump remarked on Truth Social in January while boasting about the billions of views amassed by his campaign account. Following the launch of the White House TikTok account, press secretary Karoline Leavitt affirmed this perspective. “President Trump’s message dominated TikTok during his presidential campaign,” she stated in a comment to Technology News, “and we’re excited to build upon those successes and communicate in a way no other administration has before.”
