Trump to Gen Z: You 'Owe Me Big' for Saving Tiktok

President Trump is reminding Gen Z who he thinks they should thank for TikTok. "To all of those young people of TikTok, I saved TikTok, so you owe me big," the president declared in his first TikTok post since the election. "And now, you're looking at me in the Oval Office, and someday one of you is going to be sitting right at this desk, and you're going to be doing a great job also." Trump's remarks come as a $14 billion deal to keep TikTok under US oversight moves forward, though the details are far from settled, Business Insider reports.

The agreement, which Trump greenlit via executive order last month, would see Oracle and its billionaire chair Larry Ellison take a lead role. The White House says Oracle will audit and retrain TikTok's algorithm, a core sticking point in US-China negotiations. China's government and TikTok itself aren't saying much yet, and experts note that Beijing's export controls could still throw a wrench into the transfer of TikTok's prized algorithm.

Trump's claim of TikTok heroism is a sharp contrast from his first term, when he pushed for the app's ban over national security concerns. In March last year, as the ban moved forward, Trump said his position had changed, arguing, "Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people. Months later, he joined the platform and posted regularly until the election.