A woman in Washington DC opened Mr. Trump’s TikTok account page on her mobile phone on January 19
TikTok thanked President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office for a second term on January 20, for helping restore the social network’s operations on January 19, according to AFP.
This video sharing application closed in the US at the end of January 18, when the deadline for Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest its capital in the US came.
On the morning of January 19, when countless users were disappointed to find themselves banned from using this application, Mr. Trump promised to issue an executive order delaying the ban to allow time for “agreement”.
In a post on the social network Truth Social, he also called for TikTok to be partially owned by the US.
The president-elect said he “wants the US to hold a 50% stake in a joint venture”, saying that the value of this application could skyrocket to “hundreds of billions of dollars, even trillions of dollars.” “.
“This way we save TikTok, keeping it in trustworthy hands,” Mr. Trump wrote. He has previously supported a ban on TikTok and has moved toward a ban during his first term.
In a statement posted on X after Trump’s comments, TikTok said it was “in the process of restoring service”.
“We thank President Trump for providing needed clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will not face any penalties for making TikTok available to more than 170 million Americans “.
The application was back up and running in the US on the afternoon of January 19 (local time, early morning January 20 Vietnam time). TikTok has not commented on Mr. Trump’s call for the US to take partial ownership of this application.
The law allows for a 90-day moratorium if the White House can demonstrate progress toward a viable deal, but ByteDance has so far rejected any divestitures. President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration previously announced it would not enforce any ban, but would let Trump enforce the law.
