Former US Treasury Secretary Calls on Investors to Buy TikTok

Former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is organizing a group of investors to buy TikTok. The short video app must be from an American company, Mnuchin told business channel CNBC on Thursday.

However, TikTok must not come under the control of the large American technology companies, because that could be problematic under competition law. Instead, TikTok should remain a real competitor for them. However, the app would have to be reprogrammed in the US using American technology.

There is currently a bill in the US Congress that could lead to the banning of TikTok from US app stores if the app remains owned by the Bytedance Group. Bytedance is seen as a Chinese company in the US, but the company itself refutes this by pointing out that it is 60 percent owned by Western investors and that its headquarters are in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.

Biden supports the bill

After the bill was adopted by the House of Representatives in an accelerated procedure, a longer investigation is likely in the Senate, the second chamber of Congress. US President Joe Biden has already made it clear that he will sign the law.

Bytedance would then have almost six months to break away from TikTok before the app would be removed from the download platforms. The deadline is sometimes criticized as too short. Mnuchin, on the other hand, said, “I think you can accomplish a lot in six months.” At the same time, he emphasized that the app is popular and should not be closed: “The users love it.”

Ahead of the November presidential election, both Biden’s Democrats and Donald Trump’s Republicans are aware that they can reach key young voters through TikTok.

Data collection via app

Mnuchin said his intention was to bring on board a series of investors, none of whom would control the agency alone. As Trump’s Treasury Secretary, he was also responsible for the committee dealing with foreign investments in the United States.

Mnuchin emphasized that he also had access to information about TikTok that he could not speak about publicly. “Let’s just say if you have this app on all phones, it can collect incredible amounts of data,” he said simply. Mnuchin is currently the head of financial investor Liberty Strategic Capital.

(sda/dpa)