No, phones with TikTok are not sold for thousands of dollars.

TikTok is generally banned in the United States, but it can still be downloaded on new devices. Some phones with TikTok installed are being sold for over a million dollars, although it's unclear how many people are actually paying such prices.

On January 18, 2025, before the implementation date of PAFACA (U.S. Foreign Intimidation Application Protection Act), TikTok was temporarily suspended in the United States. After being revived under the guise of Donald Trump, who postponed the enforcement of the ban, it resumed operations after Trump became president. However, the app must still be sold to other groups that are not considered "foreign adversaries" by the U.S. to be officially valid.

The Apple App Store and Google Play Store currently do not allow downloading TikTok. This is because the application is still technically banned. As a result, many people are listing phones and tablets with TikTok installed for sale on platforms like eBay and Facebook Marketplace. There have been numerous news articles and social media posts about this trend. For example, a CBS News article mentioned that "phones with TikTok are being sold online for thousands of dollars."

It is unclear who is actually purchasing phones with TikTok. When writing this article, searching for 'TikTok iPhone' on eBay yielded 86,000 results, but the number of listed items is only 596. Some listings include devices at average or below-average prices. For instance, an AT&T iPhone 11 with TikTok installed was sold for a final bid of $86, while an iPhone 15 Pro Max with TikTok installed was sold for $530.

Products with excessively high prices, such as the $30K iPhone 14 Pro Max and $5K iPhone 15 Pro Max, are marked as "highest bid accepted." This means that someone offered $5 and the seller accepted it. On eBay auctions, immediate payment can be disabled, and buyers can cancel their purchases if they have not yet been shipped. Therefore, there is a possibility that items marked as 'sold' were not actually sold. Similar trends occurred when the popular game Flappy Bird was removed from the app store in 2014, leading to very high prices for phones on which the game had still been downloaded.

Many parts of this list may simply be jokes or hoaxes. However, some could be serious attempts to sell phones with recognized overpriced TikTok versions. According to recently issued guidelines, 170 million Americans use TikTok, so there are not enough devices with installed TikTok to justify high prices. However, these lists truly make for a good laugh.