President Donald Trump said he is creating a new ‘sovereign wealth fund’ that could be used to buy TikTok and save it from a total ban in the U.S.

Trump signed a new executive order to establish the fund and noted that other countries have them – specifically pointing to oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

‘I have the right to do that’, Trump said, after mentioning using the new fund to purchase TikTok.

Trump made clear that a purpose was to have the U.S. government become a part owner of TikTok, the hugely popular app used by 170 million Americans that he credits with helping his reelection campaign.

Trump said: ‘It’s a very exciting event. We’re going to have a sovereign wealth fund, which we’ve never had. We have a lot of things that create wealth.’

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was with Trump in the Oval Office, added:  ‘We’re going to stand this thing up within the next 12 months, we’re going to monetize the asset side of the US balance sheet for the American people. We’re going to put the assets to work.’

Trump has spoken about the idea previously, after signing an order on Inauguration Day granting a 75-day reprieve of a law requiring the sale of TikTok. 

The law called for the firm’s sale if its China-based parent company ByteDance failed to divest from it, after lawmakers and Trump himself raised security concerns. It was signed into law by President Joe Biden.

Trump said he wants the U.S. to take a 50 percent stake in the firm. 

‘TikTok — we’re going to be doing something, perhaps, with TikTok, and perhaps not, if we make the right deal we’ll do it, otherwise we won’t, but I have the right to do that,’ Trump said. 

‘And we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make or we do a partnership with very wealthy people. A lot of options, but we could put that as an example of the fund.’ 

Trump noted that ‘other countries have sovereign wealth funds, and they’re much smaller countries, and they’re not the United States. 

‘We have tremendous potential in this country, tremendous you’re seeing that what’s happened just in a short period of time, and as an example, Tiktok, we’re going to be doing something, perhaps with take up – and perhaps not – that we make the right deal.’

‘But I have the right to do that, and we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund,’ Trump said.

Such funds are often used by nations with commodities that can be invested to hedge volatility and secure investment gains.

Although the U.S. is the world’s largest economy, it also has a debt of more than $30 trillion, with annual interest payments that are approaching $1 trillion. 

The order Trump signed said the plan being created ‘shall also include an evaluation of the legal considerations for establishing and managing such a fund, including any need for legislation’ – suggesting it was an open question whether he needed Congress to act.