Chinese firms’ stock plummet following Trump order

Chinese tech company Tencent has seen its stock tumble after President Trump signed a pair of executive orders Thursday night that targeted Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok.

Tencent owns WeChat and as a result saw its stock dive 5 percent on Friday.

The president’s executive order bans transactions with Tencent and fellow Chinese tech company ByteDance — owner of TikTok — in 45 days, which would be Sept. 20.

WeChat is China’s most popular messaging app, and TikTok is one of the United States’ most-used social media platforms.

The repercussions of Trump’s order could be widespread, however, as Tencent also owns parts of major gaming companies including Activision Blizzard and Riot Games — makers of League of Legends, the most-played PC game in the world.

“The spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by one mobile application in particular, TikTok,” the executive order states.

The Trump administration has repeatedly stated its concerns about TikTok’s ties to Beijing and the potential theft of American user data by the ruling Communist Party.

ByteDance is currently under investigation by the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States . 

American tech giant Microsoft has emerged as a potential buyer of TikTok, a move that Trump said he supports.

“We set a date — I set a date of around Sept. 15, at which point it’s going to be out of business in the United States,” Trump told reporters. “But if somebody, and whether it’s Microsoft or somebody else, buys it, that will be interesting.”

Microsoft has confirmed that it has been in talks with the White House and ByteDance 

“We are shocked by the recent Executive Order, which was issued without any due process,” TikTok said in a statement Friday, adding that the order has “no adherence to the law” but that the company would “pursue all remedies available to us.”