Featured Image Credit: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Business, Donald Trump, TikTok, US News, Money, World News
Callum Jones
Topics: Business, Donald Trump, TikTok, US News, Money, World News
President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order on Monday (February 3) to create a sovereign US wealth fund.
Speaking in the Oval Office, he said: "It’s a very exciting event. We’re going to have a sovereign wealth fund, which we’ve never had."
The 47th POTUS said TikTok could be its first acquisition as Trump added: "Other countries have sovereign wealth funds, and they’re much smaller countries, and they’re not the United States.
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"As an example, TikTok, we’re going to be doing something perhaps … and we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make, or if we do a partnership with very wealthy people — a lot of options, but we could put that as an example in the fund.
“We have a lot of other things that we can put in the fund.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who are leading the efforts on the new bill, provided the press with a briefing on what exactly it will entail.
As per the New York Post, Bessent said: "We’re going to stand this thing up in the next 12 months. We are going to monetize the asset side of the US balance sheet for the American people. We are going to put the assets to work.
"And I think it’s going to be very exciting. We’ve studied best practices that’s done around the world. It will be a combination of liquid assets, assets that we have in this country as we work, work to bring them out for the American people."
Meanwhile, according to the outlet, Lutick added: “The extraordinary size and scale of the US government, and the business it does with companies should create value for American citizens."
Some of the largest and wealthiest sovereign funds in the world are owned by China and Middle Eastern nations.
As for the plan with this US wealth fund, Trump has perhaps unsurprisingly got big ideas.
The president is predicting: "In a short period of time, we’ll have one of the biggest funds … The Saudi Arabia fund is on the large side, but eventually we’ll catch it. But we’re going to create a lot of wealth for the fund."
It remains unclear at this stage what an acquisition of TikTok would look like.
And it comes only a matter of weeks after the popular video platform shut down in the US, before quickly coming back online.