Mnuchin putting together US investor group to buy TikTok

After the House of Representatives enacted legislation forcing TikTok’s parent firm, ByteDance, based in China, to sell the app to American interests owing to national security concerns, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is organizing a group of American investors to purchase the app.

“It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok… because they should be owned by U.S. businesses,” Mnuchin said on CNBC’s “Squawkbox” Thursday afternoon.

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In the Trump administration, Mnuchin claimed to have “had President Trump sign an order that TikTok had to be sold” while serving as Treasury Secretary and leader of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS). Mnuchin stated that he still thinks the House plan should be approved by the Senate and that TikTok should be sold.

He continued, “There is no way the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China.”

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Under President Biden, the CFIUS has been looking into TikTok for years, but it hasn’t compelled the business to sell in order to stay in business in the United States.

If ByteDance does not remove TikTok from the country within 165 days of the bipartisan House bill’s adoption, which passed on Wednesday and is now on its way to the Senate, the app will be blocked in the United States. Additionally, a nation that is not an enemy of the United States would have to purchase TikTok.

The founder of the investment firm Liberty Strategic Capital, Mnuchin, revealed that he has been in discussions with multiple parties about the endeavor to acquire TikTok. He stated that other investors will be involved in the purchase so that the platform would not be controlled by a single party, but he did not mention any names.