Former Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin said during a Thursday CNBC appearance that he is seeking to purchase TikTok from its Chinese-based owner.
The House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would require the social media app to be sold from ByteDance within about five months to continue operating in the U.S., by a 352-65 vote on Thursday. Mnuchin told “Squawk Box” co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin he felt the popular app should be sold and that he was assembling investors to buy the app. (RELATED: Children Bombard Lawmakers With Phone Calls After Plea From Chinese-Owned App)
“It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok,” Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin, who put together a group of investors to rescue New York Community Bancorp, did not name which investors he would bring in to purchase the app.
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“I think the focus should be — it should be sold, it should be controlled by a U.S. business,” Mnuchin later added. “It’s a great company, it would be terrible if it would shut down.”
He also said that a competitor to Facebook, Instagram and YouTube is needed. Trump cited Facebook when opposing the bill, writing on Truth Social that “if you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business.”
“I think he doesn’t want to shut down because he’s concerned about the power that that would create for Facebook. I believe he would support a sale, he did support a sale. You know, I’ll call him up later and ask him,” Mnuchin said about the former president.
“Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary also expressed interest in a purchase.
“Somebody’s going to buy it,” O’Leary said. “It won’t be Meta and it won’t be Google because a regulator will stop that. A syndicate will be formed. I would like to be involved, obviously.”
Mnuchin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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