Tech
Ultrawealthy investors are vying to buy TikTok — here's what some would do if they took over the mega-app
Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert
2024-12-08T09:44:01Z
TikTok Congress
The US Appeals Court upheld a decision forcing the sale of TikTok from its China-based parent company, ByteDance, lest the short-form video platform be banned in the US. Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images
The US Appeals Court upheld a decision forcing the sale of TikTok lest it be banned in the US.
Several investors, philanthropists, and tech giants are interested in buying the company.
Here's what they've said they'd do with the short-form video platform if they bought it.
On Friday, a panel of three judges from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a law that will ban TikTok from app stores in the United States if the social media platform's parent company, the China-based ByteDance, doesn't sell its stake in the app by January 19.
In a statement about the decision, TikTok said it would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.
"Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed, and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people," TikTok's statement read. "The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025."
With the app's uncertain future in the United States, a slate of ultrawealthy investors has expressed interest in buying the social media platform.
Big-name buyers, from Kevin O'Leary of "Shark Tank" to former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, have said for months that they are prepared to step in if ByteDance changes its mind or the Supreme Court decides the ban can proceed.
Here's what those who've said publicly that they want to buy TikTok would do with the platform if they acquired the app.
Representatives for TikTok did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Kevin O'Leary
In March, the "Shark Tank" mogul told CNBC he wanted to assemble a syndicate of investors to purchase the platform for about $20 to $30 billion — a fraction of its $220 billion valuation in its last funding round.
"It's the largest entertainment and business network in America as it stands today, so it's of great interest and great value," he told the outlet.
However, O'Leary said a sale likely wouldn't include TikTok's signature algorithms, so he or another purchaser would have to "re-emulate" the app's algorithms and act as a "steward" to transform the platform from "TikTok China to TikTok U.S.A."
It's unclear exactly how O'Leary might change TikTok's algorithms; however, similar short-form video services exist elsewhere on social media with their own proprietary algorithms, and he said a new version could be created under the existing TikTok brand.
Representatives for O'Leary did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Steven Mnuchin
The former treasury secretary in March said he was putting together an investor group to try to purchase TikTok, CNBC reported.
Mnuchin didn't specify any other potential investors involved in the bid or the dollar amount they planned to offer for the social media site. In a May interview with Bloomberg Television, he said he'd replicate the app's signature algorithm to continue the service.
"My plan, if we were to purchase, it would be to rebuild the technology under US leadership, make sure that it's all disconnected from ByteDance going forward, and that it is very robust and secure," Mnuchin said.
Representatives for Mnuchin did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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Bobby Kotick
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the former chief executive of Activision was considering bidding for TikTok. The outlet reported the exact amount of his proposal was unspecified but would likely be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The Journal reported Kotick approached OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other possible investors during a dinner at an Allen & Co. conference, discussing a potential deal that could allow OpenAI to train its artificial intelligence models on the data gathered from the app.
A spokesperson for Kotick told Business Insider, "Mr. Kotick has always believed a comprehensive reciprocal trade framework is preferable to singling out an individual company, and he still does."
Frank McCourt
The former Dodgers owner and former CEO of McCourt Global has turned democratizing and improving the internet into a major philanthropic focus through his Project Liberty project. The company announced in March that McCourt had put together a bid to purchase TikTok, though the exact proposal remains unknown.
The billionaire businessman has titled the project "The People's Bid." He has secured the backing of Guggenheim Securities, an investment banking firm, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law firms.
The People's Bid aims to "capitalize on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redesign TikTok to help Americans reclaim their digital independence and, for the first time, give TikTok's users and creators control of their own online data," according to a recent press release.
A spokesperson for McCourt directed Business Insider to a public statement by the billionaire following the Appeals Court decision upholding the law which could force the sale of the app.
"Now that the Court has spoken, The People's Bid is prepared to move forward with our bid for TikTok," McCourt's statement reads. "We are going to rebuild TikTok and prove that it's possible to enjoy the internet without sacrificing our privacy and safety."
Other possible investors
Other big names have previously shown interest in buying TikTok, including Microsoft, which in 2020 tried and failed to acquire the platform when, during his first administration in August 2020, President Donald Trump, citing concerns about ByteDance's ties to Beijing, issued executive orders forcing ByteDance to sell its TikTok US operations to an American company.
Walmart and the software company Oracle also assembled a bid to buy TikTok in 2020, but TikTok ultimately defeated Trump's orders in court and the acquisition plans did not materialize.
The companies have not publicly said whether they would make another offer now. Walmart, Oracle, and Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent over the weekend.