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As TikTok’s fate in the U.S. remains uncertain, major investors such as Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary and former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt have expressed interest in acquiring the platform.
The increased buzz follows a U.S. court decision on Friday (Dec. 6) upholding a law that could remove the app from American app stores unless ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, divests its stake by January 19.
TikTok responded swiftly, announcing plans to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds. In a statement, the company said: “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people.”
With the deadline fast approaching, potential buyers wait to act if ByteDance decides to sell or if the Supreme Court upholds the ban.
Which investors are interested in buying TikTok?
Kevin O’Leary
In March, O’Leary Ventures chairman and investor Kevin O’Leary proposed buying TikTok’s assets from ByteDance Ltd., with an initial bid between $20 billion and $30 billion—a valuation slashed by up to 90% compared to the company’s most recent funding round.
O’Leary noted on CNBC that any potential deal for the short-form video platform — which PitchBook valued at $220 billion in 2023 — would likely exclude the user preference algorithms that have been a cornerstone of its success.
He said: “It’s the largest entertainment and business network in America as it stands today, so it’s of great interest and great value.”
Steve Mnuchin
In the same month, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin also expressed interest in acquiring TikTok. Speaking to Bloomberg in May, he stated, “I do believe the algorithms could be rebuilt. So 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.”
Bobby Kotick
Meanwhile, Bobby Kotick, former CEO of video game publisher Activision, has reportedly shown interest in a potential deal. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kotick approached ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming and explored the idea of forming a partnership to acquire TikTok.
Sources familiar with the matter revealed that Kotick floated the idea to a group that included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, suggesting OpenAI could use TikTok’s platform to train its AI models if Kotick secured the necessary funding for the acquisition.
Frank McCourt
Business executive Frank McCourt, executive chairman of McCourt Global and founder of Project Liberty, revealed on Face the Nation that his company is actively positioning itself as a possible buyer for TikTok’s U.S. operations.
According to reports, the billionaire has secured informal commitments totaling over $20 billion to support a possible bid. His group is also planning investor roadshows in New York and San Francisco next week to attract additional backing.
McCourt stated that his team is “uniquely positioned to assume stewardship of TikTok” and stressed a commitment to user safety in the event of a successful acquisition. He said to Axios, “The technology we are building respects individuals by returning to them ownership and control of their identity and their data, not by surveilling them.”
Featured image: Ideogram
