The US administration, the White House, launched an official TikTok account on Tuesday to leverage the popular platform with 170 million users in the US to deliver President Donald Trump’s message.
Trump has previously shown interest in the popular app, even praising TikTok for helping him win over young voters when he defeated Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the November 2024 presidential election.
However, lawmakers in Washington remain concerned that US user data could be accessed by the Chinese government. Trump is reportedly working to broker a deal to allow US investors to buy TikTok from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Previous intelligence assessments have suggested that ByteDance remains tied to the Chinese government, potentially using it to influence the American public.
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign TikTok account last year, @realdonaldtrump, now has more than 15 million followers. However, the Republican president has increasingly used Truth Social as his primary channel of communication, in addition to occasionally posting messages on X.
According to the 2024 law, TikTok must cease operations in the US by January 19 of this year unless ByteDance sells its assets in the country or shows progress towards a sale.
However, after starting his second term on January 20, Trump chose not to enforce the law. Instead, he extended the deadline several times from early April, to June 19 and then to September 17.
The move drew criticism from some lawmakers who accused the Trump administration of violating the law and ignoring national security concerns related to China's control of TikTok.
