Trump says sovereign wealth fund may purchase TikTok

US President Donald Trump has taken step one in the direction of establishing a sovereign wealth fund for the United States, and steered that it may find yourself shopping for TikTok.

The president signed an govt order on Monday, to kickstart the method, saying the fund would quickly be “one of the biggest”.

More than 90 nations have sovereign wealth funds, investing surplus revenue for the good thing about future generations. However, the US at the moment runs a funds deficit.

“We’re going to create a lot of wealth for the fund,” Trump instructed reporters, with out clarifying the place the cash would come from.

When Trump first floated the concept of a sovereign wealth fund throughout his election marketing campaign, he steered it could possibly be funded by “tariffs and other intelligent things”.

He has already introduced plans to impose tariffs on imports from America’s three greatest buying and selling companions – China, Mexico and Canada.

But on Tuesday the levies on Mexico and Canada had been paused for 30 days.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned the fund can be arrange throughout the subsequent 12 months and that the plan was to monetise property at the moment owned by the US authorities “for the American people”.

Saudi Arabia and Norway have two of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, supported by the proceeds of fossil gasoline gross sales. They put money into corporations and tasks around the globe.

President Trump has beforehand mentioned {that a} US sovereign wealth fund would finance “great national endeavours” together with infrastructure tasks reminiscent of airports, roads in addition to medical analysis.

After signing the manager order for the fund’s creation, he additionally floated the concept that it may purchase up the social media platform TikTok.

The Chinese-owned social media firm was briefly taken offline within the US final month, over nationwide safety considerations, after the earlier administration ordered its proprietor to promote its US operations or face a ban.

Trump has delayed the ban, promising to discover a resolution, after TikTok’s US customers protested at its shutdown.

“We’re going to be doing something, perhaps with TikTok, and perhaps not,” Trump mentioned. “If we make the right deal, we’ll do it. Otherwise, we won’t… we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund.”

However, the president has additionally lately mentioned that know-how large Microsoft was in discussions to amass TikTok and that he wish to see a “bidding war” over the sale of the social media app.

Other large names in tech, together with Larry Ellison and Elon Musk, have additionally been floated as doable patrons.