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Does Trump really care about TikTok?

Mylia Brooks, Staff Writer

February 10, 2025

With Donald Trump back in office, people are having trouble coming to terms with the fact that we will face another 4 years of uncertainty, not just for ourselves but for friends, families, and colleagues. Our beloved app fell into the hands of our president, and many people had doubts if TikTok would survive after the official shutdown date.

As soon as the ban took effect, people were confused when this statement appeared: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you cannot use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”

After reading this statement, users were left confused at the mention of Trump now wanting to save an app that he initially wanted to ban.

After only a few hours, TikTok was back and better than ever, with users reading this statement provided by the company: “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!” After yet another mention and this time thanks to Trump, many were left stumped; it was certain that TikTok wanted to stay in the U.S. and was willing to kiss the ring to do so.

Back in 2020, Trump came forward about his stance on TikTok and officially signed an executive order that put TikTok on the chopping block in the U.S. “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage,” the executive order reads.

TikTok was fairly quick to respond, stating that their ties to China were not something Americans should be concerned about. The claims and statements made by Trump have yet to be proven.

I do think Donald Trump has no real care for TikTok. When asked why he would save the app he went on a rant, “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points … Republicans are always 30 points down in youth. But we ended up finishing. We were 35 or 36 points up with young people. So I have a little bit of a warm spot in my heart, I’ll be honest.”

This statement is in fact false, he actually lost the youth vote by 14% according to the NBC News national exit polls. Saving TikTok is a ploy to try and gain support from the youth, and he can’t admit he lost something as simple as the youth vote. But Republicans will continue to allow him to have false fantasies and now that he has changed his mind on the existence of TikTok, I think their minds will change as well.

Rumors have been spreading of TikTok selling to Meta as well as Elon Musk, according to Dan Ives a Wedbush Securities analyst, TikTok is worth $100 billion. A former becon of free speech and expressuon will be in the hands of a greedy billionaire, working with the republican party to silence the voice of millions of americans across the country. The race to see who buys TikTok starts and ends when the 90 day extension is up.