Report: Trump admin looking into Tencent’s US gaming investments

Enlarge / SHENZHEN, CHINA - AUGUST 19: A woman walks outside the headquarters of Tencent on August 19, 2020 in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

The US government is reportedly scrutinizing Chinese tech giant Tencent and the US gaming companies in which it has an investment interest. Bloomberg reports that the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) has asked companies including Epic Games and Riot Games to answer questions about their data-security standards, according to "people familiar with the matter."

CFIUS has the authority to examine foreign investment in US companies when those investments could have an impact on national security. Historically, that has often meant examining foreign access to US natural resources or military secrets, More recently, though, CFIUS has taken an expanded interest in potential foreign access to US customer data.

When you're talking about massive amounts of data, there's probably something for the committee to look at," former Treasury Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Investment Security Aimen Mir told Bloomberg yesterday. The question then becomes is the risk high enough that it actually warrants forcing deals apart?"

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