NEW YORK (AP) – President Donald Trump’s demand that the U.S. government get a cut from a potential Microsoft purchase of TikTok is the latest unprecedented scenario in an unprecedented situation.
Microsoft is in talks to buy parts of TikTok, a forced sale after Trump threatened to ban the Chinese-owned video app, which claims 100 million U.S. users and hundreds of millions globally. The Trump administration says TikTok is a national-security concern. How a ban would have worked was not clear; that federal authority has never been used before with a consumer app. TikTok denies that it would send U.S. user data to the Chinese government.
Microsoft did not address a potential price when it confirmed the talks.
Trump said Monday to reporters that the U.S. “should get a very large percentage of that price because we’re making it possible,” adding that “we want and we think we deserve to have a big percentage of that price coming to America, coming to the Treasury.”
Trump sometimes floats ideas or actions that get set aside without follow-through. Appearing on the Fox Business Network Tuesday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow appeared to walk back the idea of a payment to the Treasury, saying “I don’t know if that’s a key stipulation.”