Trump's Cabinet Joins TikTok en Masse as Washington Reverses Course on App

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - Most of President Donald Trump's Cabinet launched TikTok accounts on Tuesday, in a coordinated move that signals a dramatic reversal of Washington's once-hardline position toward an app that Trump's own first-term administration argued posed a serious national security threat due to its ownership by China's ByteDance.

Axios reported on Tuesday that the mass Cabinet launch came days after the Justice Department told federal employees it was safe to use TikTok, citing the app's sale earlier this year to a US-controlled venture that removed it from Chinese ownership. By joining the platform themselves, Cabinet officials sent an unambiguous signal that TikTok is now considered an acceptable and officially sanctioned venue for US government messaging.

The shift is stark.

The 2022 No TikTok on Government Devices Act explicitly prohibited the use of TikTok on government-issued phones, a law passed on the strength of bipartisan concern that the app's Chinese ownership gave Beijing potential access to American user data and influence over the content seen by tens of millions of Americans. The Trump DOJ now says that legislation is no longer applicable given the change in the company's ownership structure, effectively rendering the prohibition obsolete through executive interpretation rather than congressional action.

Trump himself has been on TikTok since 2024, using the platform with notable success. Several of his posts, including one documenting his appearance at a UFC event, have generated hundreds of millions of views, establishing the president as one of the platform's most-watched political figures and demonstrating TikTok's unmatched reach among younger audiences that traditional media and even other social platforms have struggled to engage at comparable scale.

The administration now views TikTok as a powerful tool for reaching young voters, a demographic whose political engagement has been a persistent strategic concern for both major parties. The Cabinet's coordinated Tuesday launch reflects a deliberate communications strategy, using the platform not merely for individual outreach but as a collective government presence designed to normalize TikTok as a channel for official Washington.

The reversal also reflects the broader commercial and political resolution of the TikTok saga that began during Trump's first term, when his administration sought to ban or force the sale of the app, pursued litigation to achieve that goal, and framed ByteDance's ownership as an unacceptable vector for Chinese intelligence collection and influence operations. The sale to a US-approved owner earlier this year resolved the ownership question, even as some critics argue that the underlying data architecture and algorithmic infrastructure of the platform remain subjects of legitimate scrutiny regardless of who formally owns it.