President Trump demands that the U.S. Treasury should get a cut from the Microsoft-TikTok deal

The United States President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was ready to approve the purchase deal between Microsoft (MSFT) and ByteDance’s short-video app TikTok. However, Trump demanded that the U.S. Treasury should get a cut of the proceeds while the U.S. government should receive a handsome amount of money in exchange.

“A very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen,” Trump said in an interview on Monday.

Microsoft announced that it would purchase TikTok in a forced sale after Trump threatened to ban the Chinese-owned video app. The social networking service company claims that there are 100 Million TikTok users in the United States.

“Many people are angered by some of the actions of the current U.S. government, and this results in a lot of personal criticism of me. However, many people misunderstand the current, complex situation,” TikTok’s Chief Executive Officer Zhang Yiming wrote in a memo to employees on Tuesday.