Why Donald Trump radically changed his mind about TikTok

During his first term, between 2017 and 2021, the new Republican tenant of the White House tried to ban the Chinese social network. This was before understanding how TikTok could serve its own interests…

«GThanks to President Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the United States! » American users of the Chinese application only had to endure a dozen hours of access interruption before seeing this notification appear on their phone screen. By making itself inaccessible on the territory of the United States, this January 19 just before midnight, TikTok had decided to anticipate by one day the entry into force of the law (just validated by the Supreme Court) which requires it to resell its American activities under penalty of being banned. Before quickly reversing course and restoring access. A nice bluff, probably, because the social network knew that its new friend, Donald Trump, was not going to let it down like that.

In 2020, during his first presidential term, Trump nevertheless considered that it was necessary “act against the threat posed” par TikTok : l’application “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, linked to their internet activities such as location data, browsing and search history. This data is likely to be accessible to the Chinese Communist Party,” detailed the presidential decree which already wanted to prohibit ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, any activity on American territory – this decree will subsequently be blocked by a federal judge.

A baroque proposal

Four years later, in December 2024, Trump's speech was completely different. “I have a big weakness for TikTok, because I won the youth vote by thirty-four points, and some people think TikTok has something to do with that”he declared during a press conference. The man who was then a candidate for a second term had launched quite late on the social network, in June, by posting a first video of him attending an MMA competition in New Jersey. Three days later, he already had five million subscribers to his account (there are now fifteen million), ten times more than Joe Biden, who had started using TikTok a few months earlier. Enough to actually make you want to not do without such media resonance.

Sunday January 19, during his “victory meeting” in Washington, Trump did it again, paying tribute to the 22-year-old influencer, a certain “TikTok Jack” (real name Jack Advent), who gave him advised venturing onto the platform: “Until then, the Republicans had never won the vote of young voters. And there, we won by thirty-six points (1). So I like TikTok. I had a good experience, don't you think? » He then explained that he was going to sign, as soon as he took office this Monday, a decree to give a delay before the ban on TikTok takes effect, time to find an agreement with ByteDance.

His idea? “A joint venture [coentreprise, ndlr] between the current owners and/or new owners, of which the United States would hold 50% of the shares. » A baroque proposal (but it is no longer close to that), of which we are not completely sure to understand how it would solve all the data security problems. Other experts were also skeptical about the implementation of this grace period proposed by Trump, while TikTok has not yet initiated any movement towards a possible sale. And as long as nothing is done, “Any company that hosts, distributes, assists or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars in liability under the law”recalled Republican Senator Tom Cotton.

We will therefore see very quickly whether Trump is able to keep his word. In the meantime, among the guests at the inauguration ceremony of the new president, alongside Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, Shou Zi Chew, the general director of TikTok since 2021, should be prominently featured. He, who had already met Trump at his residence in Mar-a-Lago (Florida) in December, posted a short video a few days ago in which he did not fail to thank his probable future benefactor: “We are grateful and happy to have the support of a president who fully understands our platform. »