Could TikTok have a future in the U.S. under a new administration?
President-elect Donald Trump seemed to signal as much in a speech to conservative supporters Sunday (Dec. 22).
“I think we’re going to have to start thinking because, you know, we did go on TikTok, and we had a great response with billions of views, billions and billions of views,” said Trump, whose comments at the conservative group Turning Point’s AmericaFest were reported by Reuters.
“They brought me a chart, and it was a record, and it was so beautiful to see, and as I looked at it, I said, ‘Maybe we gotta keep this sucker around for a little while’,” he added.
As the Reuters report notes, these remarks were one of the strongest signs so far that the incoming president opposes a ban on TikTok.
Earlier this year, the Senate passed a bill requiring ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent, to sell the app, pointing to concerns about national security.
ByteDance has lost a court challenge to have the law overturned, and will make a final plea before the U.S. Supreme Court next month. If the high court rules against ByteDance and the company doesn’t sell TikTok, the app would be banned in the U.S. on Jan. 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration.
The company said last week it was asking the Supreme Court to apply rigorous scrutiny to the ban, as it has with similar bans, and rule that the law violates the First Amendment.
“The TikTok ban results in a massive and unprecedented censorship of over 170 million Americans on January 19, 2025,” the company said in a news release. “Estimates show that small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the ban is halted.”
The company has also argued in a court filing earlier this month that a delay in allowing the law to take effect would give the incoming administration a chance to offer its position on the matter, something that could “moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.”
Trump had ordered a ban on TikTok during his first term in the White House, but told Reuters in July that he was in favor of keeping the social media platform around.
“I’m for TikTok because you need competition. If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram,” he said.
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