Has Donald Trump become addicted to TikTok?
He who wanted to ban the Chinese application in the United States during his mandate at the head of the country has visibly changed his mind.
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“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck (sic) will double their revenue. I don't want Facebook, which cheated in the last elections, to do better. They are real enemies of the people!”
, wrote the Republican candidate for the White House on his own social network, Truth Social.
This statement directly targets a proposal from a group of American elected officials who wish to ban the Chinese social network from the country, fearing the risks of interference and espionage on the part of the Chinese government.
In conflict with Facebook since 2021
If the American candidate prefers the Chinese network to the American giant, it is because he has been in open conflict with Facebook and its creator Mark Zuckerberg for several years.
In January 2021, its Facebook and Instagram accounts, owned by Meta, were suspended following the attack on the Capitol.
The American company finally reinstated the profiles of the former American president in January 2023 after a request from Donald Trump himself.
“The public must be able to hear what political figures are saying in order to be able to make informed choices
,” Nick Clegg, head of international affairs for the Meta group, said at the time.
This return does not prevent the Republican candidate from regularly tackling Mark Zuckerberg in his speeches, regularly giving him the nickname “Zuckerschmuck”, which can be translated as “Zucker-Asshole”.
If on the surface the former American president still seems to harbor an animosity towards the social network with 2,989 users and its creator, the candidate could still need it to conquer the White House in November 2024. During his previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump used Facebook as a central tool to influence the vote of American voters.
The social network also allowed his campaign team to organize fundraisers and raise large sums of money.