CFIUS Should Force TikTok to Divest From Chinese Companies, Senator Says
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should require TikTok to cut ties with China-based ByteDance and all other Chinese companies, Sen. Josh Hawley, R- Mo., wrote in a Sept. 19 letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Hawley said TikTok’s COO told Congress last week that the company’s Chinese engineers are able to access U.S. user data and that TikTok “has taken no measures to ensure that the employees in China accessing this data are not members of the Chinese Communist Party.”
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“The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which you chair, should require TikTok to sever all ties from Chinese companies,” Hawley wrote. “TikTok should be entirely divested from ByteDance.”
Treasury and TikTok didn’t respond to requests for comment. President Joe Biden last year revoked Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban transactions with TikTok owner ByteDance and WeChat owner Tencent Holdings (see Ref:2106100005 and 2008070024).