Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday ordering the US treasury and commerce departments to create a sovereign wealth fund and said it may also be used to purchase the social media platform TikTok.
TikTok, which has about 170 million American users, was briefly taken offline just before a law requiring its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to either sell it on national security grounds or face a ban that took effect on 19 January.
Trump, after taking office on 20 January, signed an executive order seeking to delay by 75 days the enforcement of the law.
The US president has said that he was in talks with multiple people over TikTok’s purchase and would probably have a decision on the popular app’s future in February.
Since returning to the White House Trump has issued a blizzard of executive orders on a vast range of issues from tariffs to trans rights that promise to upend huge swathes of American life and have already caused chaos in the federal government.
Trump beat his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, in last November’s presidential election, securing his second term in office and dealing his opponents a morale-sapping political loss.
Reuters contributed to reporting
