Could The U-S Government Acquire TikTok?

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to create the nation's first sovereign wealth fund, which could be used to purchase TikTok.

Joining Trump in the Oval Office, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said the fund will be operational within the next year.

Though Trump did not explicitly indicate what the fund will be used for, he cited purchasing TikTok as one example.

"We're going to be doing something, perhaps with TikTok and perhaps not, if we make the right deal," the president told reporters on Monday. "But I have the right to do that and we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund."

USAToday reports a sovereign wealth fund is a government-owned fund that includes investments in foreign assets. In the case of TikTok, the newly ordered fund could be used to purchase the U.S. assets of TikTok from the platform's Chinese parent company ByteDance, if they are interested in selling.

The world's largest sovereign wealth fund is the Norway Government Pension Fund Global, which contained more than $1.7 trillion as of January, according to Investopedia. The fund was established in 1990.