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In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in early March, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was building a team of investors who could buy TikTok within six months.
The schedule is the result of a bipartisan House bill passed on March 13 that would ban TikTok unless the app is sold to a U.S. buyer within 180 days. The ban comes as the Chinese government exerts too much control over companies, resulting in companies like TikTok siphoning off large amounts of personal data and using the platform to influence foreign politics. This stems from concerns among some U.S. lawmakers that the country could be required to do so.
so far, Several wealthy and powerful people came forward as potential buyers. Mnuchin is one of them. But his plan has already been met with much skepticism.
As an example, TikTok is over 170 million active users in the US – It is high. By some estimates, the app is worth $100 billion. CNN report.
Consider how Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world, worked The men scrambled to raise the money they needed to buy Twitter for less than half that price.
And Mnuchin has suggested that rebuilding the app from scratch could bypass Chinese red tape in high-tech exports. washington post report.
“The app needs to be rebuilt in the United States, and it needs to use American technology,” Mnuchin told CNBC.
In other words, Secretary Mnuchin wants to buy TikTok without the key element that makes the app so valuable and addictive: the algorithm.
Some people are very skeptical of this proposal.
Two sources familiar with Mnuchin’s pitch told the Post that Mnuchin told potential investors that buying TikTok without a code could reduce the price of the app. He said there is. Yet, it’s exactly what’s under the hood that has made the app so successful and allowed it to cultivate over 1 billion global users.
Matt Perrault, a professor at the University of North Carolina and former director of Facebook’s public policy team, told the Post that many tech companies want to build algorithms like TikTok’s.
“All the major companies are putting a lot of money and engineering talent into this problem and are having a hard time tackling it,” Perot told the Post. “If Steve Mnuchin thinks he can do that and be successful when so many successful companies are struggling, then you’re in luck.”
Mnuchin didn’t go into much detail about how he plans to rebuild TikTok. “You can do a lot in six months,” he told CNBC.
It’s not clear what exactly that is or how much. However, TikTok, which launched internationally in 2017, certainly didn’t reach its current status in six months.
“This is like rebuilding Facebook. That’s the mission here,” a person familiar with Mnuchin’s pitch told the Post. “It can’t be completed in 180 days or even years.”
Secretary Mnuchin and a TikTok spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment sent over the weekend.