The White House has opened an official TikTok account, weeks before the United States’ deadline for the app to be banned or sold.
Under a 2024 law, TikTok must divest from its China-based owner ByteDance or be banned in the U.S. The deadline for it to do so has been extended three times, with the latest extension set to expire on 17 September.
“Every day, I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation. I am your voice,” U.S. President Donald Trump says in the account’s first video.
The account has not posted about the ban, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not comment on the upcoming deadline. “The Trump administration is committed to communicating the historic successes President Trump has delivered to the American people with as many audiences and platforms as possible,” she said.
Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign also maintained a TikTok account, though it has not posted since November.
A TikTok ban was originally proposed in 2020 during the first Trump administration, alleging China’s government could compel ByteDance to give up U.S. users’ data, with the divest-or-ban law being passed in 2024. The app was unavailable in the U.S. for one day before the law’s initial deadline of 19 January, but restored service in the country afterwards.
Last month, Commerce Seretary Howard Lutnick said that the app would once again shut down in the U.S. unless China’s government approved TikTok’s sale to an American company. ByteDance has repeatedly refused to sell TikTok.
A consortium including Blackstone and current ByteDance investors Susquehanna International and General Atlantic had sought an 80% stake in TikTok, but Blackstone reportedly exited the deal in July.
Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey also introduced a draft bill earlier this month that would allow TikTok to continue operating in the U.S. if it agreed to greater transparency on content moderation and did not store the data of U.S. users in China.
TikTok has around 170 million users in the U.S. ByteDance was valued at US$315 billion in March.
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