The White House launched a TikTok account on Tuesday amid uncertainty about the app’s future, as another deadline approaches for its parent company, Bytedance, to sell to a US buyer or be banned in the United States.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly extended the deadline of a sale-or-ban law passed under former President Joe Biden’s administration, with the new deadline less than a month away on September 17.
The latest delay in June kept the app accessible for its 170 million American users, despite the legislation that passed last year with bipartisan support over concerns that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a US national security risk. And it came as both the United States and China sought leverage in tense trade talks.
TikTok’s ultimate fate in the US remains unclear, but the official White House account is a signal the app could be here to stay.
The first post on the official White House TikTok account features video of Trump as he says, “Every day, I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation. I am your voice.” The post’s caption reads, “America we are BACK! What’s up TikTok?”
As of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, shortly after launching, the account had garnered more than 20,000 followers.
This is the administration’s first official TikTok account. Both Trump and Biden launched accounts during the 2024 presidential campaign, drawing scrutiny as the leaders had previously raised national security concerns with the app.
TikTok doesn’t operate in China, but the Chinese government enjoys significant leverage over businesses under its jurisdiction.
The US government has said it’s worried China could use its national security laws to access the significant amount of personal information that TikTok, like most social media applications, collects from its US users.
The TikTok sale-or-ban law went into effect on January 19 after Biden signed it last year. TikTok briefly took itself offline, sparking outcry from creators, but quickly came back after Trump signed an order delaying the ban’s enforcement by 75 days in one of the first acts of his second term. The president’s June delay marked his third extension of the ban.