Trump’s flip-flop on TikTok has been pretty extraordinary, even by the topsy-turvy standards of 2024. The former president signed an executive order in the summer of 2020 to force TikTok’s parent company in China, ByteDance, to sell to a U.S.-based company or face a ban. And he didn’t mince words about how much he hated the app.

One of Donald Trump’s first acts as president will be to rescue TikTok, one of America’s favorite social media obsessions, his allies tell The Washington Post.

The president-elect promised to ‘save’ the social media app, which faces a deadline early next year to find a non-China-based owner.

The feature arrives as TikTok is facing a ban in the United States. ByteDance is pushing Lemon8 as a sister app to TikTok, possibly as a way to move creators onto the new platform without having to get them to sign up for it separately.

Under the Biden administration, TikTok was told to find a new owner by January next year that is not based in China, or it would lose access to its users in America. A second Trump presidency would be favorable for the company and allow him fulfill the promise he made to protect the app during his campaign trail.