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Former US Treasury Secretary is looking for investors to buy Tiktok
Steven Mnuchin dealt with foreign investment in the US as US Treasury Secretary. photo
© Evan Vucci/AP/dpa
The Tiktok app is in danger of disappearing from American app stores – at least as long as the app continues to be owned by a Chinese company. The former US Treasury Secretary has a plan.
Former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is organizing a group of investors to buy Tiktok. The short video app must belong to an American company, said Mnuchin on the business broadcaster CNBC.
However, Tiktok should not come under the control of the large American tech companies because that could be problematic in terms of competition law. Rather, Tiktok must remain a real competitor for them. However, the app would have to be reprogrammed in the USA using US technology.
US law to ban the app prepared
There is currently a bill in the US Congress that could lead to Tiktok being banned from American app stores if the app remains owned by the Bytedance Group. Bytedance is seen in the USA as a Chinese company, but the company itself counters 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.
After the bill passed the House of Representatives in an expedited procedure, a longer examination is looming in the Senate, the second chamber of Congress. US President Joe Biden has already made it clear that he would sign the law. Bytedance would then have almost half a year to separate from Tiktok before the app would be removed from the download platforms.
The deadline is sometimes criticized as being too short. Mnuchin, however, said: “I think you can accomplish a lot in six months.” At the same time, he emphasized that the app was popular and should not be shut down: “The users love it.” Before the presidential election in November, both Biden’s Democrats and Donald Trump’s Republicans are aware that they can reach important young voters via Tiktok.
This could continue
Mnuchin said his intention was to bring on board a range of investors, none of whom would control the service alone. As Trump’s Treasury Secretary, he was also responsible for the committee that dealt with foreign investment 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 that if you have this app on everyone’s phones, it can collect incredible amounts of data,” he said simply. Mnuchin is currently the head of the financial investor Liberty Strategic Capital.