Major Win For Republicans: Senator Marco Rubio Drops The Hammer On JPMorgan CEO Over Partnership With TikTok

On this Wednesday, GOP Sen. from Florida, Marco Rubio, wrote to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, showing “strong concern” regarding a partnership between the TikTok parent ByteDance and the bank for promoting in-app payment infrastructure. 

Rubio’s letter notifies against doing business with ByteDance as it is closely linked with the Chinese government and cautionary warnings from U.S. officials regarding national security because of the company’s data collection methods. 

“As you are no doubt aware, ByteDance is controlled and directed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), meaning that data, including private information belonging to Americans and other foreigners, available to ByteDance is also accessible to Beijing,” Rubio wrote. “It is outrageous that JPMorgan Chase would elect to join ByteDance in a partnership geared toward broadening and deepening the company’s, and as a result, the CCP’s, access to countless volumes of user data.”

When Fox Business officials approached the investment bank for remarks, they refused the request

Rubio explained how senior intelligence officials have expressed their concerns about the security risks because of ByteDance and TikTok. 

He also received serious warnings from Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns and FBI Director Chris Wray regarding how Beijing can retrieve personal data and “manipulate content” using TikTok.

The Senator also mentioned that ByteDance had used the private data of the users to trace American journalists via TikTok.

“With this in mind, you can imagine my alarm when reports recently emerged that JPMorgan Chase has partnered with ByteDance to produce ‘”a real-time payments infrastructure” for ByteDance that now allows its users “to be paid instantaneously and directly into their bank accounts at any day or time,” Rubio wrote.

“It is concerning enough for JPMorgan Chase to carry water for Beijing and falsely characterize ByteDance’s ‘mission [as] to inspire creativity and enrich life,’ rather than disseminate CCP propaganda and censor references to the Uyghur genocide,” he continued. ” Even more alarming, however, is that JPMorgan Chase is now actively working with ByteDance to enlarge its capacity for ‘real-time data exchange, track and trace’ and to ‘see and monitor payments’ in light of its gross abuses of user information.”

“Assisting online companies to build out real-time payments systems, centralize banking structures, and streamline access to millions of users’ financial information is no doubt lucrative,” Rubio wrote. “However, by partnering with ByteDance to develop a treasure trove of private data, including that of millions of Americans, JPMorgan Chase has effectively handed the combination to the vault to the CCP, as well.”

Rubio concluded by summoning Dimon to give answers to numerous questions about several matters including the current status of the partnership if JPMorgan Chase was aware of the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and ByteDance, the magnitude of JPMorgan Chase’s engagement, the nature of personal data the payment system collects from the users. 

Rubio also demanded answers if JPMorgan Chase knew about China’s policy regarding the exchanging of user data with the government when the partnership commenced.

The issue raised by Sen. Rubio is a very alarming situation for the national security of the U.S. which is why the Biden administration must investigate JPMorgan Chase and take precautionary measures like Donald Trump did when he banned TikTok.