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Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he’s putting together a consortium to try to buy TikTok, as a bid to divorce the popular social-media platform from its Chinese owners gathers momentum in Congress.
Mnuchin, who has long crusaded against Chinese ownership of the app, didn’t specify how he might buy the business, which could be valued at more than $100 billion. But his comments show that should there be a forced sale, interest would likely be high in a platform that boasts more than 170 million U.S. users.
“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin said on CNBC Thursday morning. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.”
The House this week voted to approve a bill that would ban TikTok from web-hosting services and app stores in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, doesn’t divest itself of the business.
TikTok has said it sees that as an effective ban and that separating the U.S. portion wouldn’t be practical and would undercut the appeal of the app as a global product. China has said it would oppose any forced sale of TikTok.
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