Amid concerns over user privacy and national security, Mnuchin told US media that TikTok ‘should be owned by US businesses’.
Former United States Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has announced plans to rally investors in the hopes of buying the popular video-sharing app TikTok.
The announcement comes after the House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that seeks to ban the app unless its China-based parent company ByteDance divests from its US operations, amid national security concerns. The Senate, however, has yet to schedule a vote on the bill.
Mnuchin, an investment banker who served under former US President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021, shared his plans for TikTok on the CNBC business programme Squawk Box on Thursday. As of yet, however, ByteDance has not indicated any intention of selling the app.
“It’s a great business, and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok,” Mnuchin explained.
“This should be owned by US businesses. There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a US company own something like this in China.”
Mnuchin did not provide further details about his efforts, including which investors might be involved in his bid to acquire the app.
But his plans would not be the first attempt to transfer control of TikTok to US hands. In 2020, then-President Trump threw his support behind a proposed deal that would see the app acquired by the tech company Oracle and the retailer Walmart, to form a US-based enterprise.
