U.S. President-elect Donald Trump told supporters on Sunday that he wants U.S. investors to hold at least 50% of the Chinese-owned short-form video app TikTok.
On the eve of his inauguration, Trump told a gathering in Washington that he would let the app to continue to operate in the United States, “but let the United States of America own 50 percent of TikTok.”
“TikTok is worth nothing, zero without an approval,” Trump stated. “If you approve, they’re worth trillions of dollars, or some insane number.
“I’m approving on behalf of the United States, so they’ll have a partner, the United States, and they’ll have a lot of bidders and the United States will do what we call a joint venture,” said President Trump.
On Sunday, the popular app stopped access for users in the United States for almost 12 hours. This was because a new US rule requiring TikTok to be sold by its present Chinese owners, ByteDance, or be banned in the country was about to go into effect.
The app went back online after Trump, who is poised to take office on Monday, announced that he would issue an executive order to reinstate the site in the United States.
