Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is putting together a team of investors with whom he will try to buy social network TikTok. He said this today on CNBC, which focuses on finance. Mnuchin put forward his plan just hours after the US House of Representatives passed a motion that would allow TikTok to be banned in the United States.
Mnuchin on TikTok
“I think the legislation should pass, and I also think the business should be sold,” Mnuchin said on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “It’s a great business, and I will put together a group that will buy TikTok,” he added. He did not specify which investors were involved.
The owner of the TikTok network is the Chinese company ByteDance. Wednesday’s proposal by the lower house of the US Congress implies that ByteDance will have to divest the TikTok network. If it fails to do so, TikTok could be banned in the US.
It would not be the first major deal Mnuchin has been involved in since leaving the Treasury Department. Last week, his company Liberty Strategic Capital became the lead investor in a $1 billion (more than CZK 23 billion) capital raising to stabilise New York Community Bancorp (NYCB).
Abuses against Americans
U.S. lawmakers are concerned that Beijing, through its ByteDance company, has control over the TikTok platform and could abuse its influence against Americans. TikTok has repeatedly rejected such claims, calling the proposal unconstitutional, as have some lawmakers and experts.
TikTok’s platform is based on uploading and publishing short videos and is particularly popular with young people. The app previously allowed users to create short video clips of no more than 15 seconds, but later the length was extended to three minutes and now it is possible to upload video content of up to ten minutes.
Source: Czech Press Office
