Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump expressed his support for TikTok, despite the looming threat of a ban if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, fails to divest the app's U.S. assets.
In an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Trump stated, "I’m for TikTok because you need competition. If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram." This marks a shift from his previous stance, where he labelled TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, a threat before joining the platform last month.
Trump, who has been critical of Facebook and Instagram for suspending him for two years following the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021, reiterated in June that he would never support a TikTok ban.
TikTok declined to comment on Trump's recent statements. During his presidency, Trump attempted to ban TikTok and WeChat in 2020, but these efforts were blocked by the courts. President Joe Biden later rescinded Trump-era executive orders aimed at banning these apps in June 2021.
Trump holds a significant stake in the social media company Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates the rival network Truth Social. Despite its modest quarterly revenue of around $770,000, the company boasts a market cap of $7 billion.
A U.S. appeals court will hear arguments in September on legal challenges to a new law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets by January 19, or face a ban. This hearing, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, comes just weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
The law, signed by Biden on April 24, mandates ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19 on national security grounds, though the White House does not seek an outright ban on the app. Biden's campaign joined TikTok in February, highlighting the platform's significance in the political landscape.
Concerns among U.S. lawmakers about potential Chinese surveillance or data access through TikTok led to the measure's swift passage in Congress in April.
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