From Ban to Fan: Trump's White House Joining TikTok Is a Blo

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Dow Jones NewsAug 20, 1:32 PM UTC
DJ From Ban to Fan: Trump's White House Joining TikTok Is a Blow to Meta and Google -- Barrons.com

By Adam Clark

 

TikTok looks like it is here to stay in the U.S. and that is bad news for Meta Platforms and Alphabet, Google's parent.

 

The latest sign that TikTok is unlikely to face a U.S. ban is the creation of an official White House account on the social-media app. The account, named @whitehouse, was launched on Tuesday evening with a video showing footage of President Donald Trump and a caption reading "America we are BACK! What's up TikTok?".

 

It isn't a major surprise that the Trump administration is joining TikTok. The president has repeatedly deferred enforcement of a law requiring the Chinese-controlled video app to be sold or shut down for national security reasons. He created a personal TikTok account in the run-up to the presidential election last year.

 

Trump's adoption of TikTok -- a move that contrasts with his effort to ban the app in his first term -- has damped the hopes of shareholders in Meta and Alphabet that it will be deactivated in the U.S.. That could have encouraged its largely younger user base to watch and create short videos on Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube instead.

 

TikTok is still growing in the U.S. It had 130.9 million active American users a month in the second quarter of this year, up 8% from the same period in 2024, according to app tracker Sensor Tower.

 

The Trump administration has championed the idea of investors taking ownership of an American-operated TikTok from its current Chinese operator, ByteDance. Interested buyers are reported to include Amazon.com, Oracle, and the private-equity firm Blackstone.

 

However, a deal to sell a majority of the social media app to a group of U.S. investors was derailed earlier this year when the president announced his wave of tariffs, people familiar with the matter told Barron's at the time.

 

That means there is still a small possibility that TikTok could face a U.S. ban if negotiations between Washington and Beijing over trade break down. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick warned last month that TikTok would "go dark" if China doesn't agree to American control over the app. The current deadline for the handover is Sept. 17, when the latest extension expires.

 

But with the White House joining the platform, all the indications are that TikTok dance crazes will continue to spread across the U.S.

 

Write to Adam Clark at [e-mail]

 

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

 

August 20, 2025 09:32 ET (13:32 GMT)

 
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