Chairman Moolenaar Releases Statement on TikTok Deal

Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) of the House Select Committee on China issued the following statement in response to TikTok’s divestiture process and the future of the app’s operations in the United States:

“ByteDance has shown time and again that it is a bad actor, and the Chinese Communist Party’s ultimate goal is to see America divided and weakened. That is why, on an overwhelming bipartisan basis, Congress required ByteDance to divest control of TikTok. Transitioning to a majority American-owned entity would mark an important step in that process that could mitigate some of the ByteDance threat depending on the details, but divestment was not the law’s only requirement. The law also set firm guardrails that prohibit cooperation between ByteDance and any prospective TikTok successor on the all-important recommendation algorithm, as well as preclude operational ties between the new entity and ByteDance. As Chairman of the China Select Committee, I will be conducting full oversight over this agreement, starting with an urgent briefing I have requested from the Administration. Furthermore, I look forward to hosting the leadership of the new TikTok entity at a Select Committee hearing next year."