Summary
Trump signed an executive order to begin developing a U.S. sovereign wealth fund, which he said could take a 50% stake in TikTok if it is sold to an American buyer.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were tasked with laying the groundwork, though congressional approval may be required.
Trump noted that other nations have similar funds and aims to rival Saudi Arabia’s.
If the sovereign fund makes money then it’s a good investment regardless of whether the country is in debt.
Of course, it needs to make more money than it costs to service the extra debt, if they’re going to borrow to constitute it.
That’s assuming the broligarchs don’t embezzle the money of course…
Borrowing money to fill an investment fund will never work. Because if the investment fund is going to make more money than the interest on the loan costs, the lender would just do their own fund themselves and not lend money to someone else to do it.
That’s not quite true. If you’re better than the market, you can borrow until the market price for money (interest rate) adjusts (you become the market) and make money off of it. The thing just happens to be, governments aren’t usually in the being-more-efficient-than-the-market game, so, yes, countries should never do that.
Investment will equal “having a vested interest in its success”. If the government has a vested interest in the success of one company over another how is that a level playing field? If a law is in the way of a government investment, the government can simply change the law and the company benefits. That wouldn’t happen for the competitor to the government invested company.
Think how this can be used by the trump government. trump directs the US taxpayers money to be invested in Twitter or another musk controlled company. You, as a taxpayer, have no say. Twitter issues additional rounds of stock raking in money, but devaluing the existing stock.
Musk gives himself a raise from your tax money. trump could force all government agencies to use Twitter as the only official communication method. Now you have to look at ads to find out how to file your tax forms or renew your passport. The government would have a vested interest in Twitter financial success as a partial owner of it.
Is this what you want?