After years of raising concerns about the mega-popular, Chinese-owned app, the US took its biggest step yet to banish TikTok from American phones.

The House passed a bill on Saturday requiring a forced sale or ban of TikTok in the US within a year. The bill is expected to get through the Senate as soon as this week and will almost certainly be signed into law by President Biden.

Why go after TikTok? Lawmakers in both parties consider the app a threat to US national security.

• Since TikTok is owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, officials fear that the data of TikTok’s 170 million US users could wind up in the hands of the Chinese government.
• There’s also concern that Beijing could put its thumb on TikTok’s algorithm to promote its interests and influence American public opinion.

TikTok maintains it has never sent US user data to the Chinese government and wouldn’t do so if it was requested. The app said the bill “would trample the free speech rights” of its users, and Elon Musk agrees.

How this bill gained more support

It has at least two things going for it:

1. It is attached to a $95 billion foreign aid package that will send funds to Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel, and Gaza, making it highly likely to be passed by the Senate.
2. A previous incarnation called for ByteDance to find a buyer within six months. This version extends the deadline to nine months, with room for making it a full year if a sale appears close.

But a sale won’t be simple. TikTok’s price could be in the range of, oh, several hundred billion dollars, and American tech companies with that kind of money (Meta, Alphabet, etc.) would probably be prevented from buying it over antitrust concerns. Individuals including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and ex-Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick have reportedly been rallying a team of investors to explore bids.

Plus, TikTok is China’s most successful app globally, and it’s not going to give it up easily. Beijing has signaled it’s not going to allow a sale by ByteDance, adding further uncertainty to TikTok’s fate in the months ahead.—DL

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Tesla spent the weekend cutting prices. Late Friday, the electric automaker cut prices in the US on its Model Y, Model X, and Model S vehicles by $2,000, and it slashed prices by nearly the same amount across all of its models in China. On Saturday, it also trimmed the cost of its Full Self-Driving driver assist software in the US from $12,000 to $8,000. The price cuts capped a tumultuous week for Tesla, in which it cut its global workforce by 10%, made moves to restore Elon Musk’s gargantuan pay package, and recalled nearly 4,000 Cybertrucks. The company’s stock has fallen ~40% this year over concerns demand has fallen off a cliff.

Biggest homelessness case before SCOTUS in decades begins. The Supreme Court will hear arguments today in a hugely consequential case that will decide whether municipalities can punish people for living outside on public property. Should the court overturn the decision of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which found ticketing and arresting people experiencing homelessness to be unconstitutional, it would make it easier for communities to remove tent encampments, even if that community doesn’t offer shelter. More than 650,000 people in the US are experiencing homelessness, the most since tracking began in 2007.

US considering imposing sanctions on IDF unit. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to announce sanctions on an Israel Defense Forces battalion in what would be the first instance ever of the US sanctioning an IDF unit, Axios reported. The battalion in question, which was formed as a special unit for ultra-Orthodox soldiers, has been under investigation by the State Dept. since 2022 for alleged human rights violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Israeli leaders condemned the proposed sanctions; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the reports the “height of absurdity and a moral low.”

The United Auto Workers went to the land of Waffle House and smothered and covered its way to a historic victory. Now, it’s eying a bigger foothold in the South, a region typically unfriendly to organized labor.

On Friday, workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN, overwhelmingly voted to join the union, marking the first time a nonunion auto plant in the South has linked up with the UAW. While two previous union votes at the same factory failed, the UAW was able to drum up more support this time, in large part because of the major pay gains it secured last year from Detroit’s Big Three automakers.

The union hopes to take that pitch to employees at 13 car manufacturers across the US, including the South, where many foreign automakers produce cars.

It’ll be an uphill battle:

• The union membership rate is 2.3% in South Carolina, 4.6% in Georgia, and 6% in Tennessee, compared to 10% nationally, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• Southern GOP leaders say their nonunion factories are a big reason why their region is thriving economically. “The model down here is working,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said last week.

Looking ahead…the UAW’s next test is a union vote at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama next month.—NF

Buy the “art dip.” Contemporary art prices dropped almost 20% as the largest correction in nearly 30 years. After 2009’s dip, they shot up 132% over the next five years. Now, 64,502 insiders are already buying shares with Masterworks, the top-rated art investment platform. You can use this link to get VIP access to new offerings.

Opening arguments start in Donald Trump’s criminal trial: After a tumultuous first week of jury selection, the final jurors were seated on Friday, and opening statements in Trump’s criminal hush money trial will begin today. Prosecutors will try to prove that this year’s presumptive Republican presidential nominee paid to keep stories about a sexual relationship with adult film star Stormy Daniels out of the media during his 2016 run for the White House. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Busy earnings week will focus on the Magnificent Seven: Big Tech is leading the stock-market rout, but in the coming days, it has the opportunity to turn things around. Magnificent Seven members Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Tesla are among the 178 S&P 500 companies scheduled to report their earnings this jam-packed week. Other blue-chip stocks reporting include GM, Boeing, IBM, and PepsiCo.

Passover begins this evening: The Jewish holiday starts amid heightened concerns over antisemitism around Columbia University, which has been the site of large pro-Palestinian protests this past week. The White House issued a statement yesterday condemning “calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students.”

Everything else…

• In sports, the first rounds of the NBA and NHL playoffs roll on. The NFL Draft is on Thursday.
• Shakespeare Day takes place on Tuesday, the anniversary of his death. If you’d like to talk like Shakespeare, you can translate your words into Shakespearean here.
• Challengers, the well-reviewed “uproariously sexy” love triangle movie starring Zendaya, is out Friday.

Stat: After more than 150 years, JPMorgan no longer has a physical presence on Wall Street. According to the WSJ, the largest US bank closed its branch at 45 Wall St. on Friday, severing its ties to the famed street where J. Pierpont Morgan grew his empire in the 19th century. These days, Wall Street is more of a symbolic term than an actual financial district since most banks have already decamped to other parts of Manhattan. In 2000, banks occupied 5 million square feet on Wall Street; now, that’s shrunk to a couple hundred thousand square feet, per Cushman & Wakefield.

Quote: “We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”

In its panning of Taylor Swift’s new album (3.6/10 rating), Paste Magazine chose to put “Paste Staff” as the piece’s author instead of the individual who wrote it. That’s because following Paste’s negative review of Swift’s Lover album in 2019, the reviewer received threats of violence from fans who disagreed. As for its critique of The Tortured Poets Department, Paste Staff said its “mid-ness” was the result of “when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.”

Read: Boeing and the Dark Age of American manufacturing. (The Atlantic)