Donald Trump, on Monday, signed an executive order to create a “US Sovereign Wealth Fund,” a promise he made during his election campaign. The fund is to be established by the US Treasury and Commerce Departments. The move is gaining more attention as Trump hinted that the fund could be used to purchase the US assets of ByteDance-owned, immensely popular short-video sharing platform TikTok to keep it operational in the country.
The Sovereign Wealth Fund – which is expected to be formed within the next 12 months – is primarily a state-owned investment fund that includes assets like stocks, bonds, property, and more. The government is expected to use this fund to invest in infrastructure, such as highways, airports, and manufacturing hubs, along with medical research and other areas. Interestingly, while commenting on the development, President Trump said that it could be funded by ‘tariffs’ and other intelligent things.
Data from the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds shows that, so far, over 90 such funds have been established by various countries, managing more than $8 trillion in assets in total. The list includes Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, Abu Dhabi’s Investment Authority, Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, GIC, and others.
In fact, the president has expressed an ambition to grow the US sovereign wealth fund to the size or influence of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is one of the largest and most influential sovereign wealth funds in the world.
Meanwhile, speaking about TikTok’s relationship with this fund, while the social media app has already received temporary relief from a ban, its Chinese owner, ByteDance, is still required to sell it to an American owner to keep it operational. On January 20, Trump signed an executive order seeking to delay the TikTok ban in the country by 75 days. At that time, the president said he was in talks with several parties over TikTok’s purchase and that the US government might decide TikTok’s future before the end of the month.
“TikTok — we’re going to be doing something, perhaps, with TikTok, and perhaps not, if we make the right deal we’ll do it, otherwise we won’t, but I have the right to do that,” Trump said.
Now, the possibility of TikTok’s acquisition by the country’s newly formed sovereign wealth fund comes at a time when, last week, President Donald Trump stated that Microsoft is in talks to acquire the app.
