Donald Trump is back. The Republican tycoon claimed victory in the American presidential election this Wednesday. A big fan of publicity stunts, he also has things to say on social networks.
In the United States, the news around the Internet never stops. Candidates fought to win over voters on different platforms. Part of the tech sector found itself won over to Donald Trump’s campaign. And TikTok, the Chinese video platform popular with young people, is threatened with ban. In the past, the new president has regularly given his opinion.
X, his new best friend
It’s the far-right bromance in the United States: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are now inseparable. “We have a new star: Elon. He’s an incredible guy, he spent two weeks campaigning for me in Philadelphia. (…) He’s a super genius,” even congratulated the new president in his first speech. The boss of X, which he bought in 2022 when the network was still called Twitter and moderation still existed, increased the little touches. He gave $75 million (69 million euros) to the campaign, promised money to Americans who agreed to sign a petition in favor of Trump’s program, and allowed the return of Donald Trump’s account to his platform, although he was banned in 2021 after the assault on the Capitol.
Will there be a return of the elevator? Elon Musk had already served as special advisor to Donald Trump between 2016 and 2017. The Republican could still call on him, or at least support his many brands, from Tesla to Space New York Timesthe contracts of Elon Musk’s space company with public agencies, led by NASA and Defense, already represent 15 billion dollars in ten years.
TikTok, do you want it or not?
In June, Donald Trump published his first videos on a newly created TikTok account. A turnaround for him, when he had wanted to ban the social network in the United States during his first term. In April, his successor Joe Biden also promulgated a law providing for banning the platform if its parent company, the Chinese company Bytedance, did not sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company within twelve months.
Donald Trump’s remarks suggest a more conciliatory policy, and a return to the threats of a ban. “When I think about it, I am for TikTok, because you need competition,” Donald Trump then defended during the summer, in an interview with the American economic media Bloomberg. “If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram – and that, you know, is Zuckerberg,” he added, referring to his animosity for the Meta CEO.
Facebook, Instagram and Google in the crosshairs
“I think Facebook is an enemy of the people, like many other media,” Donald Trump declared on American television CNBC. Comments he repeated on Truth Social, his own Twitter equivalent. This animosity is probably explained, at least in part, by the restrictions imposed on the former president’s account in 2021, after the assault on the Capitol, on Facebook and Instagram, although they were canceled several times, between January 2023 and July 2024.
This time, it was Mark Zuckerberg, boss of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, who made a turnaround. He refused to support any of the presidential candidates – like Jeff Bezos, chairman of Amazon. He also sent a letter to the Republican camp, in which he returns in particular to “the pressures from the American government” that the company would have experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic and to which he “regrets” having given in.
Our file on the American presidential election
Will showing your credentials be enough? JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, suggested that several Gafam, the large American tech groups, could be subject to regulation or dismantling, as recalled Le Figaro. Google, considered “too big and too powerful”, but also accused of censorship by the Republican camp, is also among those concerned.
Truth, Parler… a galaxy of right-wing networks
Last element to take into account: the alt-right, the American extreme right, has also had its own social networks since the mid-2010s and Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign. After his ban from several platforms, the latter launched Truth Social in 2021, a Twitter clone for him and his supporters. Parler, another application, on the same model of microblogging for conservatives, has existed since 2018. This Wednesday, we celebrated “the resilience and diligence of a leader who never abandoned America”. On the American Internet, the atmosphere for the next four years promises to be electric.