Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump holds a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City on May 31, 2024, the day after he was found guilty in a criminal trial of falsifying business records to hide money paid to silence porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign launched an official account on the social media platform TikTok on Saturday night, but it may be banned in the United States.
“It’s an honor,” Trump said in his first speech. Tick tock A user using the handle “@realdonaldtrump” posted a video montage of Trump waving to the crowd at Saturday’s Ultimate Fighting Championship bout, which garnered 1.5 million likes within 10 hours of going online.
Trump’s TikTok rollout comes as his own social media company, Trump Media, is in a steep financial tailspin following the former president’s historic conviction on 34 felony counts in a Manhattan hush-money trial.
Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media, David The stock was down more than 5% to $49 at the close on Friday, the day after Trump’s conviction. Immediately after Trump’s guilty verdict on Thursday, the stock fell about 15% in extended trading.
After being banned from Twitter and other sites, Trump launched TruthSocial in early 2022 as an alternative, “unwoke” social media platform. Facebook Following the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Trump Media went public, and the former president now owns 65% of the company.
Truth Social did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment about Trump’s move to TikTok.
Trump is several months behind his Democratic opponent. President Joe Bidenlaunched his reelection campaign on TikTok in February, but the presumptive Republican presidential nominee already had more than 2 million followers as of Sunday, eclipsing Biden’s roughly 340,000.
These follower disparities are common among social media accounts directly affiliated with specific candidates, which generally tend to have more followers than campaign-related accounts. For example, as of Sunday, Trump’s direct Truth Social account,Donald Trump“had over 7 million followers, but his election account was…”@TeamTrumpThe answer was “427,000.”
“We are not ceding any ground to Biden or the Democrats,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said in a statement to NBC News on Sunday. “We intend to get the message of President Trump’s victory to every voter we can. He has already gained significant support among younger voters and this is another way to reach them.”
Both candidates joined TikTok despite previously raising national security concerns about the app.
Biden in April signed a foreign aid bill that included a provision forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or face a ban on the platform in the United States.
During the Trump administration, Ban TikTokBut he has since reversed his stance, but in a March interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” he still said he believes TikTok could pose a threat to US national security.