President Donald Trump has told young Americans that they “owe him big” for “saving” TikTok from being banned in the U.S.
In his first TikTok post since Election Day 2024, the President took credit for securing a deal to sell off the Chinese-owned app’s U.S. arm to a consortium of American and Arabian investors.
Officials say the deal would fulfill the requirements of a a law passed by Congress last year, which Trump has more or less refused to enforce for more than nine months while investors thrashed out the terms of a sale.
“To all those young people of TikTok: I saved TikTok, so you owe me big,” Trump said Monday.
“Now you’re looking at me in the Oval Office, and someday one of you are gonna be sitting right at this desk, and you’re gonna be doing a great job also.”
Vice President JD Vance also made his return to the platform, saying: “I got a little lazy last few months; was focused on the job of being VP, not enough on TikToks. That’s about to change.
“So follow along, we’ll update you on what’s going on in the White House, business of state; we’ll update you on what’s going on politically. Maybe some sombrero memes, here and there.”
That was a reference to deepfake AI videos posted by the president featuring House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero and cartoonishly large mustache, which Jeffries and other Democrats have condemned as racist.
Trump signed an executive order last week approving the sell-off deal, which has not yet been finalized nor publicly acknowledged by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance.
Pro-Trump billionaire Larry Ellison and Fox News magnate Rupert Murdoch will reportedly be involved in the deal, while Trump has said he would like to make TikTok’s algorithm “100 percent MAGA”.
Many users left positive comments on Trump’s post, saying “thank you President Trump”, “that’s my president”, and “best president ever!!!”
But many others took the opportunity to press Trump to release the long-promised Epstein files.
“Release the files,” said one. “Cool you got them files ready?” said another. “The files, Donny boy, we need the files,” said one more.
Others drew attention to Trump’s earlier attempts to ban TikTok via executive order via his first term.
“He’s the reason why it was getting banned in the first place. He creates problems, and takes credit for ending the problem he created,” said one user.
