Former Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said Thursday he is putting together an investor group that will try to purchase the app. Email not displaying correctly?
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** OPINION
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** TikTok isn’t for sale yet, but buyers are already lining up
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Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, shown here in 2020. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

One day after the U.S. House took a major step in banning TikTok unless it finds a new owner, a potential buyer has come into the picture.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said Thursday he is putting together an investor group that will try to purchase the China-owned app.

He told CNBC’s “Squawk Box ([link removed]) ,” “This should be owned by U.S. businesses. There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China.”

On Wednesday, the House voted overwhelmingly (352-65) to force TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the video app. According to the bill, if ByteDance refused to sell, then TikTok would be banned from app stores provided by, for example, Apple and Google in the United States.

Lawmakers in favor of the bill are worried TikTok poses a national security threat. They fear the Chinese government could force ByteDance to hand over data that would compromise U.S. users. TikTok said it has not shared U.S. data with the Chinese government and would never do so.

There’s quite a bit that has to happen before the U.S. bill would go into effect. The Senate would have to pass the bill, and there’s no indication right now that they’ll even bring it to the floor. Then President Joe Biden would have to sign it. And that’s all assuming there are no legal challenges, which there almost certainly will be.

Details about Mnuchin’s plan are still a little foggy. He says he has spoken to a “bunch of people” about buying TikTok, but wasn’t any more specific than that. The price tag, should the company ever go up for sale, isn’t even known at this point. CNBC reported ByteDance was valued at $220 billion at its last funding round in 2023, according to PitchBook data. But if just the U.S. division of TikTok was sold, the price obviously would be much lower than $220 billion. The New York Times’ David McCabe reported ([link removed]) that price could be worth more than $50 billion.

The Wall Street Journal reported ([link removed]) over the weekend, “Already, U.S. tech and media titans are circling. In recent days, some executives have discussed buying TikTok if ByteDance agrees to sell. Bobby Kotick, the former chief executive of videogame publisher Activision, has expressed interest to ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming, according to a person familiar with the situation. Any price tag is estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.”

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And now to media news, tidbits and links for your weekend review …
* Big news regarding Sports Illustrated. The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin reports “Sports Illustrated’s Employees Are Told Print Edition Will Close in May.” ([link removed])
* Fun list of the day that will sidetrack you for an hour or so. The Atlantic highlights the American novels of the past 100 years in “The Great American Novels.” ([link removed])
* Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise at Poynter, was at SXSW and writes, “What the Princess Kate photo reveals about misinformation threats during elections.” ([link removed])
* Awful Announcing’s Sean Keeley with “Here’s all the dumb (expletive) Aaron Rodgers recently said on a conspiracy theory podcast.” ([link removed]) Keeley writes in his piece, “Aaron Rodgers is so much further down the rabbit hole than many of us even realize.”
* Speaking of Rodgers, The New York Times’ Rebecca Davis O’Brien reported ([link removed]) this week that Rodgers, as well as former professional wrestler and Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, are on the list as possible running mates for presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. Jr. So, Mediaite’s Diana Falzone writes, “Donors Threaten to Abandon RFK Jr. If He Picks Aaron Rodgers as Running Mate.” ([link removed])
* All this Rodgers talk this week sprung up because a.) RFK Jr. has him on his list of potential running mates and b.) CNN ran a story ([link removed]) Wednesday that said Rodgers has shared false conspiracies about the Sandy Hook school shooting in past private conversations. For the record, Rodgers put out a statement on X ([link removed]) Thursday that said, “As I’m on the record saying in the past, what happened in Sandy Hook was an absolute tragedy. I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place. Again, I hope that we learn from this and other tragedies to identify the signs that will allow us to prevent unnecessary loss of life. My thoughts and prayers continue to remain with the families affected along with the entire Sandy Hook community.”
* CNN’s Saira Mueller with “Millions have played Wordle, but there’s more to the game than you’d expect.” ([link removed])
* The Los Angeles Times’ Nathan Solis with “Her dog went missing, then she started getting calls and texts — from the suspected dognapper.” ([link removed])
* I found this hilarious. Actress Lori Loughlin, the former “Full House” star who went to jail for her role in the college admissions scandal, was on the latest episode of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” She plays herself and leans into the whole cheating thing. The Hollywood Reporter’s Jackie Strause reports on how it all came together in “How ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Got Lori Loughlin to Parody Herself With Larry David.” ([link removed])
* The Hollywood Reporter’s Lachlan Cartwright with “Why John Avlon Ditched CNN for a Congressional Run.” ([link removed])
* Interesting choice: ESPN says it is going to add win probability to the little scoreboard on the screen that shows the score, inning, balls, strikes, outs and so forth. Win probability shows which team is likely to win (and the likelihood in percentage) at any given time in the game. On one hand, it does lean into the gambling aspect, as viewers can go to their favorite betting app at any point in the game and, perhaps, live bet on who will win. Then again, even though viewers have always been able to see the score of the game, does seeing win probability perhaps chase viewers away if one team’s win probability is, say, even 70% or 80%? Or higher?
* Bloomberg’s Jonathan Randles with “Podcast Firm That Went Viral for Missing Payments Files Bankruptcy.” ([link removed])
* The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand with “Nepotism in sports broadcasting: ‘A tremendous advantage,’ but ‘what do you do with it?’” ([link removed])
* Scott Gillespie, editorial page editor for The Star Tribune in Minneapolis, is retiring. The Star Tribune’s Christopher Magan has the details ([link removed]) .
* For GQ, Zach Baron with “Inside the Glorious Afterlife of Roger Federer.” ([link removed])
* The Ringer’s Rob Harvilla wraps up the site’s nearly three-year series with a look back in “‘60 Songs That Explain the ’90s’: The Complete Collection.” ([link removed])


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