Red flags raised over ex-Trump official’s bid to buy TikTok

14 March 2024

Former Trump Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin announced Thursday he is putting together a group of investors to buy the highly-influential social media platform TikTok, and it immediately raised red flags.

A House Republican-sponsored bill to force the sale to a U.S. company passed by a wide, bipartisan margin on Wednesday. If it passes in the Senate, and President Joe Biden signs it, Mnuchin, like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, could be in charge of a company whose algorithms affect what information Americans see, how that information is framed, and by whom. Mnuchin just last week said he would be open to working in a second Trump administration.

President Biden reportedly has said he would sign the bill if it gets to his desk.

The House bill, which passed in a 352-65 vote, was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI). Explaining what he said was the need for the legislation, which would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it is not sold to an American company, is its strong impact on younger Americans.

Sky News reported Gallagher “insists there is a need to ban the app because it’s ‘becoming the dominant news platform for Americans under 30’.”

“Mnuchin was in the admin[istration] when Trump initially sought to ban TikTok from U.S. app stores. He argued back then that it should be sold to a U.S. company, while others advocated for an outright ban,” noted CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.

Critics are expressing great concern.

“If you’re worried about what the Chinese might do with that video of your puppy wait until you see what a Trump Administration would do with the intel community, law enforcement, your privacy rights, to anyone who spoke out against him, in coordination w/right wing tech moguls,” warned foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf.

Media Matters’ Andrew Lawrence sarcastically wrote on X, “rest easy everyone, instead of china exploiting your info itll just be a bunch of former trump admin goblins doing it instead.” He added, “i dont think congress should force an influential social media app to be sold to their political cronies.”

BBC political political analyst Mary Anne Marsh wrote, also sarcastically, “Oh, so the Saudis and China can control @tiktok_us. No national security concerns whatsoever…I mean the Saudis only gave Mnuchin $1 billion then gave @jaredkushner $2 billion when they walked out of the @WhiteHouse…”

Attorney Luppe B. Luppen, co-author of a book on the future of the Democratic Party, observed: “Having seen what happens when a Trump-aligned rich guy buys a social media network, I would not want my government to have a hand in bringing that about again.”

Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic Instructor Alejandra Caraballo posited, “Ask yourself why Republicans keep lining up to try and buy Tiktok. Larry Ellison at Oracle, Bobby Kotick, and now Trump treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin. They want to weaponize it to push conservative views like Elon and Dems are complicit in it.”

Democratic strategist and senior advisor to former Obama cabinet secretary Julian Castro said, “Democrats shouldn’t help Republicans force the sale of another major media platform to right-wing billionaires.”

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