On Monday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that while there are concerns about potential privacy issues around social media, TikTok did not explicitly come up during the talks between President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping last week.
Co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked, “Was there any additional conversation about companies like TikTok and ByteDance that owns TikTok? There [have] been real questions about the national security concerns that it may represent and some of the things that are pouring through social media at Americans now over the last month, as it relates to the attack in Israel and the like, and I’m just curious, what kind of conversation, if there was, might have related to that?”
Yellen responded, “This wasn’t an explicit matter of discussion between Presidents Biden and Xi. I met with my own Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier He, for two days preceding the Biden-Xi meeting, and we did discuss issues concerning China’s investments in the United States and the CFIUS process where we review investments, but there’s a legal action that is currently pending in regard to TikTok, and we’re not really able to pursue further CFIUS actions while that legal — issues are pending.”
Sorkin then asked if investors should invest in a potential ByteDance IPO and underwrite TikTok given the concerns around it.
Yellen answered, “Well, look, we do have concerns around the potential issues with privacy and social media, but I’m really not at liberty to discuss the TikTok case in detail. I want to avoid giving advice to investors. This is a matter that has not yet been resolved.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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