Unlike his famous father, Barron Trump seems to prefer keeping a low profile. The 19-year-old doesn’t even have any public social media accounts – although there are numerous fan accounts and thousands of posts about him.

Now, as a deal takes shape for a consortium of mostly American investors to take over TikTok in the US, it’s been suggested that President Donald Trump’s youngest son should have a role on the board of the social media platform.

The idea was mooted by Trump’s former social media manager, Jack Advent.

“Young people are overwhelmingly the user base of TikTok,” Advent told the Daily Mail.

“I’m hopeful President Trump will consider appointing his son Barron, and maybe other young Americans, to TikTok’s board to help ensure it remains an app young people want to keep using.”

Neither Donald nor Barron – who is studying at New York University’s Stern School of Business – have responded to the suggestion, but it doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.

Trump has previously praised the teenager as a “very smart guy” with an “unbelievable aptitude in technology”. He and first lady Melania, Barron’s mother, have credited Barron with helping capture the youth vote during the presidential election.

The President also said that young TikTok users “owe” him for saving the platform after he signed an executive order that would allow the app to keep operating in the United States if its US assets were transferred to American investors.

@realdonaldtrumpI SAVED TIKTOK!♬ original sound – President Donald J Trump

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, which has raised concerns about data privacy and foreign influence given that it has about 170 million users in the US.

Now, however, there is concern about influence of a different kind relating to the planned takeover of the platform’s American operations by the consortium of Trump and MAGA-aligned investors that is said to include software company Oracle (led by tech billionaire and Trump backer Larry Ellison), venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (whose co-founder is an economic adviser to the President), and possibly computer pioneer Michael Del and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

“If the concern had been that TikTok could be a conduit for Chinese government propaganda … people can now be concerned that TikTok could be a conduit for US government propaganda,” digital rights organisation the Electronic Frontier Foundation said.

If Barron Trump did become involved in TikTok, it would likely spark further questions about political influence and conflicts of interest.

Political science academic William F Hall told Newsweek that if Barron was given a seat on the board it could create “an appearance of impropriety” and raise questions about “ethics and enrichment by public officials”.

Despite – or perhaps because – he rarely makes public appearances, Barron frequently finds himself at the centre of media speculation and stories.

Most recently, he was rumoured to be facing “challenges” at university when it was reported that after spending his first year at NYU’s Greenwich Village campus, he would return home to live at the White House and continue his studies at a satellite campus in Washington DC.

Some university sources have claimed the young Trump – who was just 10 when his father was first elected president – was considered awkward and “a bit of an oddity” on campus.

During a recent round of golf with Donald Trump, the US President’s granddaughter, Kai, asked him how Barron was doing at university.

“Good, he’s doing good,” Trump said. “He’s a good boy. He loves you.”

Those comments, originally shared in a video on Kai Trump’s YouTube channel, have been widely shared elsewhere, as has a quip from the President about his youngest son at an inauguration event in January.

“I’ve got a very tall son named Barron. Has anyone ever heard of him?” Trump asked jokingly, before going on to heap praise on the teenager.

Barron made a rare political appearance at his father’s inauguration. Photo: AAP

Barron’s height is frequently mentioned in news articles – he’s said to be “6 foot 7”, or about 204 centimetres – as is the fact that he prefers soccer to golf, is tech-savvy, and appears to be following in his father’s steps with his interest in business.

Forbes reported this month that at 19, Barron is already worth at least $150 million. This is largely due to the fact that shortly before the 2024 election he co-founded cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial with his father and older brothers.

The website estimates that the company has added more than $US1.5 billion ($A2.3 billion) to the Trump family fortunes – “about 10 per cent of which, or $150 million, belongs to Barron”.

Barron also launched a high-end real estate business in July 2024, according to Newsweek. It was dissolved when his father won the US presidential election.

Donald Trump has credited TikTok with helping boost the turnout of younger voters at the 2024 election, while he and Melania have both said that Barron also helped attract young voters with his advice about which podcasts his father should appear on.

An extensive profile on Vanity Fair earlier this year offered a fascinating insight into Barron’s life and the appeal he seems to have with young right-wing influencers.

It noted that to get to class at the NYU campus in Greenwich Village, a motorcade of black SUVs had to drive him about 20 minutes from his then home at Trump Tower. “As his first semester got underway”, it said, “his movements were tracked and recorded on social media for sport”.

The article also pointed out that although Barron had been “touted as the visionary” of the cryptocurrency platform, he didn’t attend the livestreamed launch, and also missed the Republican National Convention in July.

“The pattern is disorienting but unmistakable. Barron’s cachet grows with every missed appearance.”