Trump says an American superb fortune could acquire Tiktok. Here’s what we know

New York
Cnn
–

President Donald Trump said on Monday that Tiktok could be acquired by a newly proposed American superb property fund.

The statement was easy on detail, but Trump said Tiktok could “be inserted” the possible SOVERIGN WEALTH FEAD to preserve access to the popular video app in short form in the United States.

“Other countries have sovereign wealth funds,” Trump said, signing an executive order that instructs US officials to set up such a fund in the United States, modeled by state-owned investment funds in countries such as Norway and Saudi Arabia directly their national budgets to Financial assets such as shares, bonds and real estate.

“As an example, Tiktok, we will do something, maybe with Tiktok and maybe not. If we enter into the right deal, we will. Otherwise, we won’t, ”Trump said. “And maybe we can put that in SOVEREIGN WEALTH Fund, no matter what we are doing. Or if we make a partnership with very wealthy people. A lot of options. ”

The proposal is coming as Tiktok is under pressure to find a new owner in April after Trump signed a 75-day extension to the law that requires the app to be sold from its China-based parent company bytance or banned in the United States.

Trump has promised to help prepare an appointment to make sure the app remains available to its 170 million US users. He said earlier that the United States could take a “50% ownership position” in a joint venture, potentially with Tikkok’s existing owners or new owners.

But standing up a sovereign wealth fund and then using this fund to acquire the platform will be unlikely to happen soon, and Tikkok’s deadline for preparing an agreement is approaching quickly. It is not clear who would run it or whether it could gather the tens of thousands of billions dollars that are estimated to be necessary to buy the platform.

In addition, an acquisition of Tiktok of the US government could raise some difficult questions, including how the platform would be governed.

Tiktok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technically, the proposal was able to work below the limits of the sale of the sales or railway adopted with broad Bipartisan support in Congress and signed in the law last year by former President Joe Biden. For an appointment to satisfy The law of the lawBytance cannot have greater than a 20% share in Tiktok, and “there can be no operational relationship between Tiktok and Bytedance in the future,” according to Alan Rozenshtein, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School that specializes in technical law.

He added that city dancing should also provide full control over Tiktok algorithm – which both the company and the Chinese officials have previously said they would oppose to do.

“It would satisfy the divestment problems,” which motivated Congress to pass the law, Rozenshtein told CNN in an interview last week.

But if the US government is taking a large stake in Tiktok, the app “could become Ugovernable” due to protection protection.

“This is very complicated very quickly,” Rozenshtein said.

And while the US government managed to acquire some or whole Tiktok, there is no guarantee of the app’s US users – which has long been skeptical of the government’s motivations in trying to force a sale of Tiktok and has been frustrated over months of uncertainty in it Possible ban – would remain on the app. If users abandon the platform, advertisers would probably follow and potentially undermine such an investment.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think too many people will be on a platform owned by the government, which is obviously monitored by the government. I don’t think no one wants it, ”said a user in a video last week.

Another user worried that an American acquisition of Tiktok could “change what we are allowed to say who we are allowed to criticize.”

“It is definitely F *** ing Dystopian to say out loud that the US government that we want Feds to own our social media. Why does the government own social media? This seems like a big no, ”they said.