Businessman Joe Lonsdale said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that giving the Chinese government access to 100 million Americans over TikTok was insane.
When asked about the Chinese Communist Party, Lonsdale said, “I think it is frankly a bigger threat. I mean obviously the confidence in the U.S. is a big deal, and we have to make U.S. confidant and overcome that. I think China is very scary. As A.I. gets better giving them access to 100 million of our people over TikTok is insane. Again this is not a ban we’re talking about. This is talking about not letting CCP own this. It’s not allowed to own The New York Times. Rupert Murdoch had to become a U.S. citizen.”
He continued, “You have a crazy dictator in charge there.”
Lonsdale added, “Elon Musk, others on the right want to make sure it’s not giving the president the power to go after any platform they want. My reading of the bill is actually that CFIUS powers are already a superset of these things for that. I don’t think this bill creates that. I think it should be clear the bill does not create extra power for someone to go after Elon Musk or frankly Meta, but they need to go after the CCP and TikTok and fix that. I think it’s your duty as an American. It’s really important they do this.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
