Following multiple executive orders to postpone the effective date of a law passed last year that would ban the popular social media platform TikTok if a controlling stake wasn't sold to U.S.-based ownership, President Donald Trump announced last month that a final deal was close at hand.

On Monday, Trump returned to TikTok himself to share the news and joked to the platform's predominantly younger users that they "owe me big" for saving it from being banned, according to the New York Post.

Indeed, polling shows that TikTok is the most popular social media platform among Gen-Z adults, whose votes will likely prove critical in the next few election cycles to keep Trump's Republican allies in the majority in Congress and the White House.

Trump says young TikTok users "owe me big"

President Trump, who previously tried to ban TikTok himself during his first term, briefly used the popular platform during the 2024 election to reach young voters, but then took a hiatus from his account after winning a second term in office, per the Post.

He returned on Monday with a short video from inside the White House, in which he joked, "To all of those young people of TikTok, I saved TikTok, so you owe me big."

"Now, you’re looking at me in the Oval Office, and someday one of you are gonna be sitting right at this desk, and you’re gonna be doing a great job also," he added.

The Post noted that Vice President JD Vance also posted a video of his own to TikTok, in which he said, "Glad to be back on TikTok thanks to President Trump! Follow along here for more updates from the White House, and maybe even some sombrero memes."

The quip about sombrero memes was a reference to the humorous posts that have flooded social media over the past week to mock Democrats for shutting down the federal government over an absurd demand to provide illegal aliens with taxpayer-funded healthcare and other benefits.

Research shows TikTok mostly used by young adults

Though clearly a joke, President Trump is correct in noting that young adults have him to thank for the efforts he's made to prevent their preferred social media platform from being banned.

The Pew Research Center recently shared the results of surveys conducted to determine how many U.S. adults consume news stories on social media and which platforms they use for this purpose.

The study found that roughly 53% of all adults get at least some of their news from social media, and of those, approximately 20% preferred to use TikTok, up from just 3% in 2020.

It was further revealed that out of all TikTok users, around 55% used the platform to regularly consume news, up from 22% five years ago. Of those users, 43% were adults aged 18-29 -- more than any other platform -- while another 25% were in the 30-49 age bracket.

Trump authorized a deal to save TikTok

It was on September 25 that President Trump issued an executive order about saving TikTok from being banned while also addressing the national security concerns -- namely, the Chinese ownership of the platform -- that precipitated the bipartisan law that was passed last year in the first place.

Not all of the details of the deal have been finalized or reported on yet, but it is believed that a consortium of U.S.-based owners will soon take 80% control of TikTok, including operational control and oversight of its algorithms, before a new deadline in January 2026 arrives.