White House launches official TikTok account as Trump’s deadline to ban app looms

The White House launched an official TikTok account on Tuesday, less than a month before President Trump’s deadline for the social media app — owned by China-based ByteDance — to either find a new owner or face a U.S.-wide ban. 

The account posted its first video Tuesday afternoon: a 27-second montage of videos of Mr. Trump waking and speaking with supporters, overlaid with audio from his acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention.

“America we are BACK! What’s up TikTok?” reads the caption to the video, which drew more than 90,000 views in just over an hour.

TikTok faces an uncertain future in the United States amid worries about national security. Under a law signed by former President Joe Biden last year, ByteDance was required to either sell TikTok’s U.S. operations by Jan. 19 or face a ban from app stores. But Mr. Trump has repeatedly extended that deadline, giving ByteDance more time to find a buyer.

The most recent extension runs out on Sept. 17. It’s unclear if Mr. Trump is planning on extending the deadline again.

When the last extension was granted in mid-June, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time that the administration was “working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.”

CBS News has reached out to the White House. 

Members of both parties have expressed concerns about TikTok, arguing its Beijing-based parent company could be forced to share U.S. users’ data with the Chinese government, or could manipulate the types of content promoted by the app’s powerful algorithm to advance China’s foreign policy goals. TikTok has long denied that it’s subject to the Chinese government’s whims, and has said American user data is stored on U.S. servers.

Mr. Trump’s views on TikTok have shifted in recent years. He tried to ban the app during his first term, citing national security risks, but reversed course during the 2024 presidential race, arguing a ban on TikTok would only empower Facebook. Both Mr. Trump and his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, had active campaign TikTok accounts last year.