• by Colin Kirkland , March 14, 2024

One day after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that could result in a ban of the popular video-sharing app TikTok, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced he is assembling a group of investors to buy the ByteDance-owned company.

On Wednesday, the House passed The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (H.R. 7521) with a 362-55 margin.

If the Senate also passes the bipartisan bill, TikTok will be forced to either sell the app within 180 days, or the distribution of the app will be banned from all app stores and websites in the country.

U.S. lawmakers have long expressed concern over ByteDance's relationship with the Chinese government, distrusting the company’s word that it would deny the government access to the user data of Americans if it was asked to.

The U.S. government is concerned about the potential for China to use this data, together with TikTok’s powerful algorithm, to influence public opinion.

“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin, who leads Liberty Strategic Capital, told CNBC on Thursday. “It's a great business and I'm going to put together a group to buy TikTok.”

Before working under President Trump, Mnuchin was an experienced Wall Street investor working at Goldman Sachs, which he followed up working as a financier with a Hollywood production company on the side.

ByteDance was valued at $220 billion during its last funding round in 2023, according to PitchBook data.

TikTok, which is believed to be worth tens of billions of dollars, according to a report by Statista last month, is widely viewed as a worthwhile purchase. Bytedance had stated that the app is not for sale.

Alongside Mnuchin, Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision Blizzard, has also been shopping a potential deal with prospective partners, according to a report from the The Wall Street Journal.

As Mnuchin supposedly builds his investment team, the movement to ban TikTok is facing growing backlash from the American public, with millions of small businesses that rely on the app for their livelihoods.

Right now, there are over 150 million Americans who use the service, according to Statista.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for Beijing's commerce ministry said that the government hopes the U.S. can “respect the principles of a market economy and fair competition [and] stop unjustly suppressing foreign companies” while TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said in a video Wednesday night that the company is encouraging users to contact their senators “to protect your constitutional rights” and “make your voices heard.”

Chew added that TikTok will be “exercising our legal rights.”

President Biden has said he will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk. But while the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre hopes the Senate will “take swift action” in passing the bill, recent reports describe senators expressing mixed views on the bill.