TikTok’s CEO insinuated that the popular app is not for sale and said it is “not feasible” to divest parent company ByteDance, despite an impending bid from Donald Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and a group of investors.
Mnuchin announced the offer less than 24 hours after the House passed bill 352-65 that would force China-backed parent company ByteDance to divest the social media app or face a ban in the US.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a trip that he described as “pre-planned” before yesterday’s vote.
He is making a last-ditch effort to get senators to undermine House-passed legislation that President Joe Biden has already said he would sign.
When asked by a reporter why he doesn’t want to sell the app, Chew replied: “We’ve looked at it and it’s not feasible to do what the bill thinks it does.”
When asked if he planned to sell to ByteDance, the CEO replied: “This bill, in all the details you can read, go through the details, this would lead to a ban on the app in the country.”
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Chew continued. “I haven’t heard exactly what we did wrong.”
TikTok CEO asked: “Why don’t you want to sell?”
“It is not feasible” and “would lead to a ban on the app in the country.”
So TikTok admits that it would rather sacrifice its American users and revenue than disconnect from a genocidal communist regime.
Logical business decision. https://t.co/zITo85ce5F pic.twitter.com/7gG5UbgsCe
— Chinese Communist Party Selection Committee (@committeeonccp) March 14, 2024
TikTok CEO asked: “Why don’t you want to sell?” 
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a trip he described as “pre-planned” before yesterday’s vote
‘As you know, it is very disappointing for us that the bill has been passed in the House of Representatives. We looked at it: this is a bad bill… that will lead to a ban.”
The legislation advanced Wednesday despite calls from Donald Trump and Elon Musk to oppose the bill and anger from teenagers for it not to stop them from accessing the wildly popular video platform.
Now senators will decide whether the national security threat posed by TikTok is worth the headaches of voters who love the app, and they have been calling lawmakers nonstop asking them to vote against the measure. The social media company has more than 150 million US users.
“I think the legislation should be passed and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday morning. “It’s a great company 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 that in China.”
The House China Select Committee says Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials through ByteDance are using TikTok to spy on the locations of its American users and dictate its algorithm to carry out influence campaigns, making it a national security threat.
After the law is signed, ByteDance would have 165 days to get rid of TikTok. If not, app stores and web hosting platforms are not 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.
But as the bill has gained momentum, so has the opposition. Trump threw cold water on it last week, insisting that if TikTok were banned, its rival Facebook would “double their revenue.”
“I don’t want Facebook, which cheated in the last election, to do better,” Trump wrote in a social media post. ‘They are a real enemy of the people!’
He is mounting a last-ditch effort to get senators to block House-passed legislation that President Joe Biden has already said he would sign.
Lawmakers accused TikTok of providing its US user data to Chinese parent company ByteDance, which they say has ties to the Chinese Communist Party
Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk has spoken out against the TikTok law, claiming it could be used as a form of government oppression
Elon Musk joined Trump in opposing efforts to control TikTok’s influence, calling it government censorship, in a post on X Tuesday.
‘This law isn’t just about TikTok, it’s about censorship and government control! If it were just about TikTok, it would only mention ‘foreign control’ as an issue, but that’s not the case,” Musk said.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also voted against the bill, mentioning Musk by name, praising him for restoring her account on
“What’s to stop the U.S. government from forcing the sale of another social media company in the future that claims to protect U.S. data from foreign adversaries?”
‘I think this bill could cause future problems. It opens Pandora’s box and I am against this bill,” Greene said in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
