TikTok's Future No Clearer With Trump Cabinet Picks' Remarks

The incoming Trump administration and President-elect Donald Trump himself have taken myriad positions, if not conflicting ones, on banning TikTok or forcing its sale, leaving the future of the social media giant still in flux.

President Joe Biden signed legislation in April that would ban TikTok for its ties to the Chinese Communist Party if it is not sold before Trump takes office.

Courts once blocked Trump's executive order to ban TikTok for its ties to the CCP, but even amid its "national security threat," a ban would only give more power and influence to Meta/Facebook, Trump warned this March in backing down on his past position, NBC News reported.

Thereafter, Trump started his own TikTok account in June, building 14.6 million followers, which is the most of any U.S. politician on a social media tool that used to be dominated by Democrats and progressives.

Trump vowed in the final weeks of the presidential campaign to "save TikTok in America," but his Cabinet members have not been as convinced in their past public remarks, as NBC News reported:

Brendan Carr, Federal Communications Commission's chair-nominee has talked about "reining in" Big Tech, including TikTok.
CIA Director-nominee John Ratcliffe said in 2022, "TikTok is a national security threat" that should get kicked out of the U.S.
White House press secretary designee Karoline Leavitt: "As a generation Z American, I can tell you all my friends, my colleagues, my former classmates are on TikTok. It is the main source of news for the majority of American youth, and it is truly the bane of our society right now. It is owned by the CCP. They are pushing algorithms that are very damaging to the intellectual curiosity and to the ideology of young Americans today."
Incoming deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka denounced TikTok as a "CCP instrument" and "a way to collect data from Americans, including children, and then exploit it for the purposes of the world's largest communist regime," saying "people want to ban it, especially on the right."
Director of National Intelligence-nominee Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat with more than 1 million TikTok followers, warned on Joe Rogan's podcast earlier this year she opposed the ban or forced sale "on the grounds of free speech and civil liberties."
Another former Democrat, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., called the CCP ties a "a smokescreen," warning, "Congress and the administration don't understand that TikTok is an entrepreneurial platform for thousands of American young people" and saying the Biden administration wants "to screw them over just so they can pretend to be tough on China."
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz has 1.1 million TikTok followers and has used the platform for commissions on health and wellness products, according to NBC News.
Department of Governmental Efficiency head-designee Vivek Ramaswamy flipped off his past TikTok disgust of it being "digital fentanyl" to now noting: "In retrospect, it was a little bit of an old-fashioned decision to say that there's an entire mode of communicating with young people that I was going to turn off."
Elon Musk is the owner of X and does not have a public TikTok account, but he opposes a ban: "In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform," he wrote. "Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for."
Incoming national security adviser Michael Waltz voted for the law Biden signed and said the Biden campaign should be "ashamed" of using TikTok for campaigning on the CCP-tied application amid security concerns and potential "election interference," saying the sale or ban was "long overdue." "We should not allow our greatest adversary to access 150 million Americans and their data," he added.
Secretary of State-nominee Marco Rubio, R-Fla., co-introduced the legislation that banned TikTok on government devices in 2021 and called forcing American ownership of the app "a huge step toward confronting Beijing's malign influence."
Both South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem (Department of Homeland Security secretary-nominee) and North Dakota GOP Gov. Doug Burgum banned TikTok on their state-owned devices.
Labor Secretary pick Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., and designated U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., voted for the sale-or-ban law.
Veteran Affairs Secretary-nominee Doug Collins, R-Ga., warned of government overreach, saying, "We really don't need the government getting into that, and that's the problem."
Surgeon General pick Dr. Janette Nesheiwat is supportive of bans on TikTok, and any social media for young Americans: "In my opinion, social media should be banned to all teens and young children, because it's done nothing but harm."