President Donald Trump signed an executive order that has the potential to allow the government to buy TikTok.
The new executive action, signed on February 3, directed the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, with the stated goal of profiting from government contracts with certain companies.
A sovereign wealth fund, as defined by Investopedia, is a state-owned investment fund composed of money generated by the government, often derived from a country’s surplus reserves.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick would be appointed to spearhead the effort for the fund, aimed at acquiring TikTok and possibly shares in other larger companies, such as vaccine manufacturers.
“If we are going to buy two billion COVID vaccines, maybe we should have some warrants and some equity in these companies,” Lutnick said.
Bessent, speaking alongside Trump from the Oval Office on Monday, said the fund was an issue of “great strategic importance.”
“We have tremendous potential,” Trump told reporters, according to Yahoo.
He later posted on Truth Social, “Great interest in TikTok! Would be wonderful for China, and all concerned.”
CNN contributor Brad Todd called the move a “terrible idea” and suggested that the app should not be connected to the government.
“The only way … to bring TikTok back is if it is completely disconnected to the Chinese government. It doesn’t need to be connected to ours either. I can’t think of a worse idea than the sovereign wealth fund,” Todd said, per RawStory.
Trump had recently halted a ban on TikTok for 75 days after the company, owned by China’s ByteDance, was previously ordered to either divest from the communist nation or sell the product to an American investor.
The app went dark for its approximately 170 million American users on January 19 until Trump enforced the delay by way of executive order on January 20.
Meanwhile, 14 states were already in litigation against the app over claims that it addicts young children and “continually misrepresents its platform as ‘safe’ [and] ‘appropriate for children and teenagers.'”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had previously likened Trump to a fascist over his dealings with the app. The congresswoman said that TikTok was essentially being used as a “push notification system for all 170 million American users to promote Donald Trump.”
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