Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Floats Assembling Buyers for a TikTok Bid

President Trump’s former treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, says he’s planning on putting together a group of investors to buy TikTok if Congress bans foreign ownership of social media platforms, a move that would likely represent the capture of another social media platform by conservative owners.Wednesday, the House passed a bill that would either ban TikTok or force the sale of the platform, which is partially owned by Chinese investors. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok,” Mr. Mnuchin told CNBC. “It’s worth a lot of money.”According to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, the platform’s Chinese founders currently own 20 percent of the company, with its employees owning another 20 percent and investment firms from around the globe owning the remaining 60 percent.Despite the minority ownership, members of Congress have been critical of any amount of ownership of the company being held by Chinese citizens or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.Members of Congress like Senator Hawley have even questioned whether TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, is a member of China’s communist party, despite him being Singaporean.“Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?” Mr. Hawley asked at a hearing. “Senator, I’m Singaporean. No,” Mr. Chew replied.Mr. Mnuchin was an early crusader in the push to ban TikTok in 2020 but faced resistance from others in Mr. Trump’s administration. Now the measure has bipartisan support, at least in the House.“There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a US company own something like this in China,” Mr. Mnuchin told CNBC.Mr. Mcuchin also said he would allow existing American investors to roll over their investments in TikTok after the takeover. However, he added that he would not allow for any single investor to maintain more than 10 percent control.The Chinese government has also said that it would oppose any forced sale, and has moved to prevent such a development since the idea of banning TikTok first came onto the political scene in 2020.Depending on the group of investors Mr. Mnuchin assembles, the sale could represent another social media company being taken over by conservative management. Billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform formerly known as Twitter in April 2022, claiming that he was doing so in the name of free speech.The platform has since increased its rate of compliance with government censorship requests. According to a report by Rest of World, Mr. Musk’s platform complied with 83 percent of requests by governments to remove posts in the six months after Mr. Musk’s takeover. According to Twitter’s final transparency report before Mr. Musk’s takeover it had complied with about 51 percent of censorship demands.

Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Floats Assembling Buyers for a TikTok Bid

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