US President Donald Trump has said the US government should receive a share of the proceeds if an American company buys TikTok's US operations. In a phone call with Microsoft's CEO, Trump demanded a 'substantial portion' of the purchase price, warning he would ban the app on 15 September if no deal is reached.
TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, is under pressure to sell its US business amid Trump's crackdown on Chinese tech firms. The administration has accused TikTok of providing user data to the Chinese government, which both TikTok and Beijing deny. Trump stated, 'The United States should get a very large percentage of that price, because we're making it possible.'
Legal experts have questioned the legality of such a demand. Nicholas Klein, a lawyer at DLA Piper, said the government generally lacks authority to take a cut of a private deal through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The state-run China Daily warned Beijing would not accept the 'theft' of a Chinese tech company and said China had 'plenty of ways to respond'.
Charlotte Jee of MIT Technology Review described Trump's comments as 'pretty astonishing' and 'almost Mafia-like behaviour', noting that threatening a ban to lower the price and then demanding a cut was extraordinary. The tight deadline and Trump's shifting stance further complicate negotiations, with Microsoft also in talks to buy TikTok's operations in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
