“It’s a great company. I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok,” said the former Republican minister in Donald Trump’s government (2017-2021), “because (the platform) should be controlled by American interests “.
“I spoke to several people” about the project, said the former head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs, nevertheless refusing to reveal names. The House of Representatives adopted a text on Wednesday which, in the event of a favorable vote in the Senate and promulgation by American President Joe Biden, would force ByteDance to sell TikTok, under penalty of banning the social network in the United States.
An uncertain Senate vote
The outcome of the vote in the Senate, however, appears uncertain. No potential buyer had, until then, officially come forward. The Wall Street Journal nevertheless reported that the former boss of video game publisher Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, had expressed his interest to the co-founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming.
The value of TikTok is difficult to estimate, especially in the case of a forced sale. In 2020, ByteDance had set its price at $60 billion when the government of Donald Trump wanted to force it to part with it, according to the Bloomberg agency.
Raising $2.5 billion from investors
After leaving the US government, Steven Mnuchin founded a private equity firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, with a particular interest in the technology sector. It quickly raised $2.5 billion from investors, according to the New York Times, including part from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.
Liberty recently broadened its reach by leading a group of investors who recently recapitalized troubled US regional lender New York Community Bancorp to the tune of $1.05 billion. When Steven Mnuchin entered government in 2017, his fortune was estimated by several American media at around $400 million.