There is a group of investors that are looking into purchasing the social media platform TikTok.
However, when Democrats realize who wants to purchase it, it may guarantee that the Senate will kill the bill.
Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who worked in the Trump administration said during an interview that he is seriously putting a group together to purchase the company.
“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin, who leads Liberty Strategic Capital, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.”
“This should be owned by U.S. businesses. There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China,” Mnuchin said.
What’s going to be interesting is what happens if the Senate passes the bill and Biden signs it.
From CNBC:
Still, it remains unclear if the Chinese government would permit ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. buyer. TikTok has lobbied furiously against the bill, including a concerted pitch to its user base and through videos on its platform.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has implied that a sale is not an option. China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin described the bipartisan push as indicative of “robber’s logic” toward TikTok, the Financial Times reported Thursday.
Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has also expressed interest in the social media platform and is open to working with other partners.
Things aren’t looking good for the bill in the Senate.
Majority leader Chuck Schumer has started to slow things down.
“The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House,” he said refusing to offer a timetable.
The back and forth going on in Congress seems like the Senate may alter the bill to send it back down to the House.
From Roll Call:
Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said in an email that she would be speaking with her House and Senate colleagues to “try to find a path forward that is constitutional and protects civil liberties” while acknowledging she was “very concerned about foreign adversaries’ exploitation of Americans’ sensitive data and their attempts to build backdoors in our information communication technology and services supply chains.”
Can’t wait to hear Democrat Senators find out a former Trump official wants to buy the platform.
The left already lost Twitter folks they won’t lose TikTok.
