US should get substantial portion of TikTok operations sale price: Trump

US President Donald Trump said Monday the US government should get a “substantial portion” of the sales price of the US operations of popular short-video app TikTok and warned he will ban the service in the United States on September 15 without a sale. The turnaround came after Trump on Friday said he was planning to ban the Chinese-owned video app’s US operations as soon as Saturday after dismissing a possible sale to Microsoft.

Reuters reported last week that some investors are valuing TikTok at about $50 billion, citing people familiar with the matter.

“I did say that if you buy it, whatever the price is that goes to whoever owns it, because I guess it’s China essentially … I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the US because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen,” Trump said.