President Donald Trump floated the idea of buying TikTok with an American sovereign wealth fund, which he signed an executive order on Monday to create.
“So other countries have sovereign wealth funds, and they’re much smaller countries, and they’re not the United States. We have tremendous potential in this country,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.
Sovereign wealth funds pool money that comes from the government, often a surplus from economic activities like producing oil. Some funds invest in stocks and bonds, while others invest directly, buying real estate, companies, and other assets. Norway has the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, with $1.7 trillion in assets.
“And as an example, TikTok, we’re going to be doing something, perhaps, with TikTok, and perhaps not,” he said. “If we make the right deal, we’ll do it; otherwise, we won’t.”
“But I have the right to do that and we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make, or if we do a partnership with very wealthy people,” Trump added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the fund would be set up within the next 12 months.
Time’s running short for TikTok
TikTok has until April to devise a game plan as it fights against the Supreme Court’s divest-or-ban law. It went dark for its 170 million US users on January 18, a day before its original deadline, but was restored hours later.
Shortly after his inauguration on January 20, Trump signed an executive order to delay the ban by 75 days. He then suggested that the US should own half of TikTok.
“I think we would have a joint venture with the people from TikTok. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said after taking office.
A day later, he said he would be on board with Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison buying TikTok.
Neither businessman has publicly expressed interest in buying the app. But Musk said in an X post on January 19, the day of the intended ban, that he has been against the ban “for a long time” because it “goes against freedom of speech.”
Representatives for Trump and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
