TikTok boss says whether to sell app, says divestment from parent ByteDance ‘not possible’
TikTok’s CEO hinted that the popular app is not for sale, saying it is ‘not possible’ to divest from parent company ByteDance despite an upcoming bid from Donald Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and a group of investors.
Mnuchin announced the bid less than 24 hours after the House passed a bill 352-65 that would force its Chinese-backed parent ByteDance to divest the social media app or face a U.S. ban
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a trip he described as ‘pre-planned’ ahead of yesterday’s vote.
He is launching a last-ditch effort to try to get senators to tank the House-passed legislation, which President Joe Biden has already said he would sign.
When a reporter asked why he doesn’t want to sell the app, Chew replied: ‘We’ve looked at it and it’s not possible to do what the bill says it does.’
When pressed on whether he intended to divest to ByteDance, the CEO replied: ‘This bill, in every detail you can read, go through the details, this would lead to the banning of the app in the country.’
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Chew continued. ‘I haven’t heard exactly what we’ve done is wrong.’
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was on Capitol Hill Thursday for a trip he described as ‘pre-planned’ ahead of yesterday’s vote
‘As you know, it is very disappointing to us that the bill was passed in the House of Representatives. We looked at it – it’s a bad bill…which will result in a ban.’
The legislation moved forward on Wednesday despite calls from Donald Trump and Elon Musk to oppose the bill and outrage from teenagers for not preventing them from accessing the wildly popular video platform.
Now senators will decide whether the national security threat posed by TikTok is worth the headache of voters who love the app and have been calling lawmakers repeatedly, asking them to vote against the measure. The social media company boasts over 150 million US users.
“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin told CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ Thursday morning. ‘It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.
“This should be owned by American companies,” he added. “There’s no way the Chinese would ever let an American company own something like this in China.”
The House China Select Committee says Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, through ByteDance, are using TikTok to spy on its American users’ locations and dictate its algorithm to conduct influence campaigns, making it a national security threat.
ByteDance would have 165 days after the law’s signing to divest from TikTok. If it doesn’t, app stores and web hosting platforms won’t be allowed to distribute it in the US
The bill has a good chance of becoming law as a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed the bill and Joe Biden confirmed he would sign it if it also passes the Senate.
Still, as the bill has gained steam, so has its opposition. Trump threw cold water on it last week, insisting that if TikTok was banned, its rival Facebook would ‘double their business’.
“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last election, to do better,” Trump wrote in a social media post. ‘They are a true public enemy!’
He is launching a last-ditch effort to try to get senators to tank the House-passed legislation that President Joe Biden has already said he would sign.
Lawmakers accused TikTok of providing its US user data to Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance, which they say has ties to the Chinese Communist Party
Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk has come out against the TikTok bill, claiming it could be used as a form of government repression
Elon Musk joined Trump in opposing efforts to rein in TikTok’s influence, calling it government ‘censorship’ in a post on X on Tuesday.
‘This law isn’t just about TikTok, it’s about censorship and government control! If it was just about TikTok, it would only mention ‘foreign control’ as the problem, but it doesn’t,’ Musk said.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also voted against the bill, mentioning Musk by name, praising him for restoring her account on X after it was previously banned and denouncing the ‘Pandora’s Box’ this bill could open.
‘What’s to stop the US government from forcing the sale of another social media company that claims it protects US data from foreign adversaries?’
“I think this bill could cause future problems. It opens Pandora’s box and I am opposed to this bill, Greene said on the floor Wednesday.