Where the White House Is Leading Us with TikTok

In recent weeks, a picture of TikTok’s future in the United States has come into some clarity. A consortium of American investors—including Oracle’s Larry Ellison, a close ally of Donald Trump; Susquehanna International’s Jeff Yass, who has donated tens of millions to conservative causes; and Silver Lake, a private equity firm whose affiliates have donated to both Republicans and Democrats—will own about 80 percent of the company. Over the weekend, Trump said that Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan would also “probably be in the group.” Trump is soon expected to approve the framework of the deal through an executive order. (China will also need to sign off, and the arrangement will need regulatory approval.) We’ve come a long way from TikTok getting banned in the US—and Trump’s White House, whose account has more than 1.4 million followers, has become a real-time laboratory for how the government can leverage the platform.

Last month, Tow Center researchers wrote about how the White House has been transforming its communications from a traditional government press office to a direct-to-consumer media operation, producing articles that are top-ranked on Google News and running its own news aggregator to promote favorable coverage. Since late August, when the White House created its TikTok account, we have been collecting data on its follower and engagement metrics. (“President Trump’s message dominated TikTok during his presidential campaign, and we’re excited to build upon those successes and communicate in a way no other administration has before,” Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, said then.) The data paints a picture of a communications team increasingly emboldened to test the boundaries between entertainment and public information.