White House Launches New Account On Controversial Social Media App

The White House has launched a new social media account.

In a suprising move the White House has created an account on TikTok.

The move by the White House comes as TikTok’s owner ByteDance is facing a deadline to be banned.

Here’s the official announcement:

NEW 📲 FOLLOW THE WHITE HOUSE ON TIKTOK 🇺🇸 AMERICA IS BACK. 🦅

➡️ https://t.co/zwDqYQR3PP pic.twitter.com/YdY7af3qjl

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 19, 2025

CBS provided more on the White House’s new account on TikTok:

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.

Here’s the White House’s first post on TikTok:

BREAKING: White House launches TikTok account and posts EPIC clip pic.twitter.com/FfaUnd6vBq

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 19, 2025

CNN provided more details on the story and how much the account has gained traction:

As of 8 p.m. on Tuesday, shortly after launching, the account had garnered more than 20,000 followers.

This is the administration’s first official TikTok account. Both Trump and Biden launched accounts during the 2024 presidential campaign, drawing scrutiny as the leaders had previously raised national security concerns with the app.

TikTok doesn’t operate in China, but the Chinese government enjoys significant leverage over businesses under its jurisdiction.

The US government has said it’s worried China could use its national security laws to access the significant amount of personal information that TikTok, like most social media applications, collects from its US users.

The TikTok sale-or-ban law went into effect on January 19 after Biden signed it last year. TikTok briefly took itself offline, sparking outcry from creators, but quickly came back after Trump signed an order delaying the ban’s enforcement by 75 days in one of the first acts of his second term. The president’s June delay marked his third extension of the ban.