WASHINGTON D.C. (CelebrityAccess) — Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin revealed on Thursday that he’s assembling a group of investors to make a bid on short form video social media platform TikTok after the U.S. House of Representitves passed a bill banning the company from operating in the U.S. under its current Chinese ownership.
Mnuchin, who served as Treasury Secretary under President Donald Trump told CNBC’s Squawk Box that he’s been in consultations with a “bunch of people” with an eye towards purchasing the platform.
“This should be owned by U.S. businesses,” Mnuchin told Squawk Box. “There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China.”
Mnuchin provided no additional details about who his investment partners might be, or how much he anticipated spending on TikTok.
Mnuchin’s interest in TikTok follows the passage of a bill in the House that would force the company’s Chinese parent ByteDance to divest TikTok within six months over national security concerns. While the measure has passed the house, it must still be considered by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by the President.
“This is a critical national security issue. The Senate must take this up and pass it,” No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise said of TikTok on social media platform X.
Similar efforts to limit TikTok’s reach in the U.S. last year were stalled amid an intensive lobbying push by TikTok, which maintains that data from its U.S. operations is protected.
