Andreessen Horowitz could join bid to buy out TikTok’s Chinese owners

Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:

• Andreessen Horowitz could join US TikTok bid

• China’s latest military exercises around Taiwan

• Indonesia’s new sovereign wealth fund vows transparency

US venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz is in talks to invest in social media platform TikTok as part of an effort led by Donald Trump to wrest control of the popular video app from its Chinese owners.

What we know: The group, whose co-founder Marc Andreessen is a vocal supporter of the US president, is in talks to add new outside investment that will buy out TikTok’s Chinese investors. The talks come as part of a bid led by Oracle and other American investors to carve it out of its parent company ByteDance. Andreessen Horowitz was approached as TikTok’s advisers and the White House sought to add financial firepower to ongoing discussions. The firm was strongly considering making an investment, said three people familiar with the discussions. 

Looming deadline: The Oracle-led bid recently emerged as the frontrunner ahead of a deadline on April 5, when a federal law would ban the app in the US unless its Beijing-based owner sells the American arm to non-Chinese entities, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. 

Trump connections: Marc Andreessen’s close ties to the Trump administration include helping recruit staff for Elon Musk’s US government cost-cutting unit, while former Andreessen Horowitz general partner Sriram Krishnan is serving as a White House adviser for artificial intelligence. 

Here’s the full story — plus more tech news below:

And here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs: The US president could trigger a $1.4tn trade war today when he plans to announce sweeping new tariffs on imported goods. Here’s how the worse-case scenario could unfold.

• Economic data: March inflation figures are due from Singapore, South Korea and Australia.

• Benjamin Netanyahu: The Israeli prime minister will visit Hungary, defying an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Five more top stories

1. China has begun large-scale military and coastguard exercises around Taiwan, the latest round in Beijing’s escalating campaign to assert its claims of sovereignty over the island nation. Two people briefed on the situation said the Shandong, a Chinese aircraft carrier, was approaching waters 24 nautical miles off Taiwan’s coast yesterday, the closest it has ever been to the Taiwanese mainland. Here’s how Taipei responded.

2. Indonesia will run its colossal new sovereign wealth fund “like a public company”, its chief investment officer said as he acknowledged investor concerns about the governance of a vehicle with $900bn in assets. Danantara, which became one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds overnight when it launched last month, is set to invest billions of dollars into priority sectors identified by President Prabowo Subianto.

3. The US labour watchdog froze two cases against Apple days after Trump nominated an attorney who represents the tech group to be the agency’s top legal official. The National Labor Relations Board filed multiple complaints against the iPhone maker last year alleging it intervened against employee attempts to organise, but abruptly pulled back from two of the cases late last week, according to documents seen by the FT.

4. The EU has a “strong plan to retaliate” against US tariffs expected today, the president of the European Commission has said. Ursula von der Leyen told the European parliament yesterday that the bloc was prepared to hit services exports including those from Big Tech companies if Trump imposed “reciprocal tariffs” on all imports into the US.

5. Vehicle sales at China’s BYD soared 58 per cent in the first quarter in a stark contrast to an expected fall in demand for Tesla’s electric cars, as European consumers shun Elon Musk’s brand. Analysts warned figures set to be released today for Tesla’s first-quarter sales were likely to show a drop of more than 10 per cent.

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