Former U.S. Treasury Secretary: Forming an investor team to bid for TikTok

CNN reported that former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that he was forming a team of investors to bid for TikTok.

At 10 a.m. local time on March 13, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to divest TikTok, the social software owned by ByteDance, with 352 votes in favor and 65 votes against. According to IT House’s understanding, the bill requires ByteDance to divest TikTok within the next 165 days from the date of promulgation, otherwise TikTok will face a ban in the United States. If the bill is formally passed, it will force ByteDance to sell TikTok. Otherwise, app stores such as Apple and Google will be forced to stop providing web hosting services to TikTok, and TikTok will not be able to do business with other American companies.

“It’s a very good business, and I’m going to put together a team to acquire TikTok,” Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday morning. While TikTok may not be profitable, “it’s worth a lot of money,” he added.

Mnuchin said he would give existing U.S. investors the option to extend their holdings of TikTok shares, but stressed that no entity would have more than 10% control.