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Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is building a group of investors to buy ByteDance’s TikTok, as a bipartisan bill moving through Congress threatens ByteDance’s U.S. existence.
The House passed the bipartisan bill Wednesday. If the bill becomes law, ByteDance would have to sell its flagship global app or face a de facto ban on TikTok in the United States.
“I think the bill should pass, and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin, who heads Liberty Strategic Capital, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “We’re going to form a group to buy TikTok because this is a great business.”
There are similarities between Liberty and ByteDance. Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Vision Fund invested in ByteDance in 2018 and is also a limited partner in Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic.
The bill is currently in the Senate, where its future is uncertain, but President Joe Biden has said he intends to sign the bill once it reaches his desk.
“This should be owned by an American company. There’s no way China would let an American company own something like this in China,” Mnuchin said.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have emphasized TikTok’s influence in the U.S., with 170 million Americans using the app by independent estimates and giving the Chinese government easy access to the U.S. and provides influence.
Major technology investors, including Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla and Keith Lavoie, have publicly and privately denounced social media platforms as having harmful influence.
Still, it remains unclear whether the Chinese government will allow ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. buyer. TikTok has been aggressively lobbying against the bill, pitching en masse through its user base and videos on the platform.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has hinted that a sale is not an option.Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the bipartisan push showed “the logic of robbery” against TikTok, according to the Financial Times. report Thursday.
ByteDance was valued at $220 billion in its last funding round in 2023, according to PitchBook data. TikTok’s individual valuation was not immediately clear, but the sale price for its U.S. unit is likely lower.
TikTok’s most valuable asset, and the weapon most concerning to lawmakers, is its algorithm, which delivers content tailored to users. developed in china. If you sold TikTok without an algorithm, it would be much less attractive to potential buyers.
Mnuchin did not disclose the potential valuation of other investors or social media sites that would participate in such a deal.
There are other interested buyers.wall street journal report On Sunday, it was announced that former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick was exploring potential deals with future partners.
Last week, Secretary Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital became the lead investor in a $1 billion capital raise aimed at stabilizing New York Community Bancorp.
Mnuchin served as Treasury secretary under former President Donald Trump. The administration also took a hostile stance toward TikTok, which ultimately led to ByteDance entering into a data partnership with Oracle. Trump has since reversed his course and opposes banning TikTok.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.