Potential buyers, merger bid, possible extension

On By Littum

TikTok is slated to be banned in the US unless a potential buyer takes over before Congress’s Sunday deadline.

Back in April, Congress decided that the popular video-sharing app must sell its US assets, which currently belong to Chinese parent company ByteDance, due to national security concerns. United States Supreme Court unanimously upheld the April Act on Friday. President Joe Biden decided he would not enforce the ban, leaving it up to President-elect Donald Trump, whose inauguration is set for Monday.

Despite attempts to ban TikTok during his first term in office, Trump has expressed a change of heart due to a surge of support from younger voters amid his 2024 campaign. He has since vowed to “save” the social media platform through his exact course of action remains unclear. On Friday, he wrote on Truth Social that his decision “will be made in the not-too-distant future, but I need time to review the situation. Stay tuned!”

On Saturday, the future president said NBC News he expects “most likely” to implement a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban once he is sworn in.

As TikTok US users fear the end of the app, there is still a glimmer of hope from potential buyers for a possible merger with an American search engine.

Is the TikTok ban getting a 90 day extension?

Trump will “most likely” grant a 90-day reprieve on the incoming TikTok ban when he’s president, he told NBC News.

The 90-day hold would give his new administration time to find a solution.

“I think that would be an option that we’re looking at,” Trump said in a telephone interview Saturday with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker. “The 90-day extension is something that will most likely be done because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation.”

Could TikTok Merge With Perplexity AI?

American technology company Perplexity AI submitted a bid to ByteDance on Saturday to merge its search engine with TikTok US, according to Reuters.

The merger would launch a new entity that would allow the majority of ByteDance’s current investors to retain their stakes and save the app’s US presence, Reuters reported. The company reportedly believes that the Chinese firm will be more open to a merger than a sale.

Perplexity AI executives believe the merger will add video content to its search technology, which uses large language models and tools like OpenAI and Meta Platforms’ open source model Llama.

USA TODAY has reached out to ByteDance and Perplexity AI for comment.

Who owns TikTok?

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based private global company founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. According to TikTok, about 60% of the parent company is owned by global institutional investors, 20% by the company’s founders and 20% by employees.

TikTok, whose global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, is not a China-based company as the app is not even available for use in the Asian country. Douyin, another platform owned by ByteDance, is TikTok’s mainland Chinese counterpart.

Why is TikTok getting banned?

The ban on TikTok stems from concerns US officials have about the level of control the Chinese government has over the company.

The Justice Department’s two main gripes with the platform are the possibility that the Chinese government might decide to dictate what content users see to influence public opinion, and that the country might collect sensitive data from the app’s millions of American users.

Is MrBeast buying TikTok?

YouTube star MrBeast, whose real name is James “Jimmy” Donaldson, shared an X post earlier this week saying: “Okay fine I’m buying Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned.” The YouTuber who Forbes reported earns $84 million annually, then posted a follow-up X post saying, “Ironically I’ve had so many billionaires contact me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can pull it off.”

While MrBeast’s remarks remain murky, McCourt announced last week that his Project Liberty initiative made a formal offer to Bytedance. Project Liberty president Tomicah Tillemann said in a statement that the organization would not disclose the bid amount, but the group previously disclosed that it secured $20 billion in verbal commitments from an unnamed group of investors ready to buy TikTok.

Who could buy TikTok?

Musk, MrBeast, investor and “Shark Tank” host Kevin O’Leary and Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty have been the names primarily linked to the acquisition of TikTok.

Other names that have been rumored as possible buyers include Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of video game publisher Activision; Walmart CEO Doug McMillon; Microsoft; and the video sharing platform Rumble.

Could Elon Musk buy TikTok?

Although Musk has not publicly announced an intention to buy TikTok, he condemned the platform’s ban back in April.

“In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the US, although such a ban may benefit the X platform,” Musk wrote in an X post. “To do so would violate freedom of speech and expression. That is not what America stands for.”

Musk, who along with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy was tapped by Trump to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force to cut government spending, has experience buying and owning a social media platform after he bought X ( formerly Twitter) in October 2022.

Chinese officials have also mentioned Musk and working with the Trump administration when discussing contingency plans for the TikTok ban, Bloomberg reported. Musk has previously met with Chinese leaders and supported them and the country, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

When asked if Musk is potentially buying TikTok, a representative for the platform told the WSJ: “We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction.”

Is Frank McCourt or Kevin O’Leary buying TikTok?

McCourt and O’Leary are also among the rumored potential buyers.

O’Leary could be one of the investors Project Liberty hinted at when he confirmed he would join McCourt in a plan to buy TikTok.

Kotick, McMillon, Rumble and Microsoft remain options to buy TikTok

Kotick is a possible TikTok buyer, having previously spoken to ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming about acquiring the platform, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024.

Rumble offered to buy TikTok in March 2024, and the company said it was “ready to join a consortium with other parties” to buy the app, Forbes reported. Neither Rumble nor CEO Chris Pavlovski has disclosed details of the offer, the outlet said.

Walmart and Microsoft would return to the negotiating table to buy TikTok after the companies proposed a bid in 2020 to acquire the US part of the platform. McMillon and Walmart also joined with Oracle to take over TikTok’s US operations in 2020, but ByteDance won an injunction, halting Trump’s planned ban and ultimately dissolving the deal.

Since then, McMillon hosted ByteDance’s founder in Bentonville, Arkansas in 2023, New York Post reported citing sources close to the situation.

Starring: Mike Snider, Greta Cross, Clare Mulroy, Maureen Groppe & Rebecca Morin, USA TODAY