Trump Eyes TikTok Buyout With Sovereign Wealth Fund

United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to start developing a government-owned investment fund which he mentioned could help make money from TikTok if he can find an American buyer for it.

LEADERSHIP recalls that Trump signed an order on his first day in office to grant TikTok until early April to find an approved partner or buyer, but said he’s looking for the U.S. to take a 50% stake in the social media platform.

Trump said Monday in the Oval Office that TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance was an example of what he could put in a new U.S. sovereign wealth fund.

“We might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make or we do a partnership with very wealthy people, a lot of options,” he said of TikTok. “But we could put that as an example in the fund. We have a lot of other things that we could put in the fund.”

Sovereign wealth funds invest in assets, such as stocks, bonds and real estate. They are typically funded by a country’s budgetary surpluses, which the U.S. currently does not have.

Trump noted that many other nations have such investment funds and predicted that the U.S. could eventually top Saudi Arabia’s fund size.

“Eventually we’ll catch it,” he promised.

There are over 90 sovereign wealth funds around the world that manage over $8 trillion in assets, according to The International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, a London-based organisation made up of roughly 50 of these entities.

In the U.S., more than 20 sovereign wealth funds exist at the state level, according to analysis from the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based nonpartisan think-tank.

The largest ones based in Alaska, New Mexico and Texas are financed through revenue that comes from oil, gas and mineral proceeds and are used to fund in-state programmes, such as education.

The Centre said although these funds are owned by governments, they tend to operate as independent institutions with their own investment strategies and staff.

The president put Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his pick for commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick in charge of laying the groundwork for creating the fund, which would likely require congressional approval.

The executive order says a plan for the fund including recommendations for investment strategies and a governance model has to be submitted to Trump within 90 days.

Former President Joe Biden’s administration had studied the possibility of creating a sovereign wealth fund for national security investments, but the idea did not yield any concrete action before he left office last month.

Bessent said the administration’s goal was to have the fund open within the next 12 months, and Lutnick said another use of the fund could have been for the government to take an profit-earning stake in vaccine manufacturers.

“The extraordinary size and scale of the U.S government and the business it does with companies should create value for American citizens,” Lutnick told reporters.

TikTok was supposed to be banned in the U.S. last month under a federal law that forces ByteDance to divest its stakes or face a ban.

The law was passed in April with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Biden. The two companies and some users quickly took legal action against the statute, which was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court last month.

After taking office, Trump, who had attempted to ban the popular app during his first term, directed the Justice Department to pause enforcement of the law for 75 days.

The reprieve has given the company more time to work out a deal with the administration.