Trump claims he's TikTok's most-followed account, but data tells a different story

President Donald Trump veered off-topic when asked whether he'd discussed share donations to the newly launched Trump Accounts with Elon Musk, instead claiming he's the top-ranked figure on TikTok. "Now, there's a thing called TikTok. It was announced about two days ago; the new numbers just came out. You know who the number one person on TikTok is by far? Trump, me. I'm number one. Like, Taylor Swift was number 11. I was number one by a lot," he told reporters at the Oval Office.

The President explained that his comments came in the wake of a Fox News show in which Maria Bartiromo discussed the dangers of TikTok with Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at Gatestone Institute. "But if they influence so badly, I'm saying all things like: I love our country. We got to stop communism. So I guess maybe, I don't know, maybe they're bad, maybe they're not," he continued, adding that the platform helped him win the election with a landslide.

In the interview, Chang warned that China has leveraged TikTok's algorithm to promote pro-Russian and pro-Hamas narratives and influence young Americans, particularly on college campuses. He said China was "poisoning the minds of Americans" and shaping U.S. public opinion, adding that the country has the means to counter this influence but has yet to act, and urged continued vigilance.

President Trump may be busy boasting, but a recent article by Epidemic Sound pokes several holes in his tall claims. Khaby Lame, a Senegalese-Italian influencer, has the most followers at 162.3 million, followed by Charli D'Amelio and MrBeast, ranking third with 129.1 million. The article revealed that Trump does not even feature in the top 10, which includes Addison Rae, Zach King, and BTS. Swift, in fact, has 33.5 million followers on the platform, whereas Trump has less than half that, at 16.6 million, according to Yahoo.

The President previously shared a graphic claiming videos hashtagged #TRUMP logged 400 billion all-time views on TikTok. But it clarified that these videos were not limited to those shared only on the president's account, adding that Trump's individual account has 121.8 million likes on the platform. It must be noted that Trump asked for TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app during his first term.

The government cited national security concerns about allowing TikTok to operate without U.S. stakeholders, arguing that the Chinese government could access American user data through the app. Congress banned the app in 2024, but it was able to continue operating after the transfer of its U.S. unit to American investors—including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX—who are tasked with data protection and content moderation within U.S. borders, according to The New Republic.