Billionaires and businesses that could preserve TikTok in the United States
As the United States Supreme Court reviews the TikTok ban, numerous firms and billionaires have expressed interest in purchasing ByteDance’s popular social networking app to escape the ban, which is set to take effect on Sunday.
Chinese government officials have considering selling TikTok’s United States operations to Tesla CEO Elon Musk as China examines how to handle its relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, whose relationships with Musk have grown closer in recent months.
MrBeast, actual name Jimmy Donaldson, said on X that he would «buy TikTok so they don’t ban it,» later saying that «many billionaires» contacted him and asked him to see «if we can pull this off.»
On January 9, Project Liberty, an Internet advocacy group run by billionaire Frank McCourt, presented a proposal to buy TikTok’s U.S. assets, stating that the group would restructure the company to collect less user data. The plan was supported by «Shark Tank» investor Kevin O’Leary, Guggenheim Securities, and others.
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told CBS that the financial services firm had valued TikTok at approximately $100 billion.
The Supreme Court suggested that it will rule on the TikTok ban this week, before it takes effect on January 19. It is possible that the prohibition will be delayed until after January 19, and Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar stated that the court may be allowed more time to rule.
