US businessman Frank McCourt is open to joining other buyers in a bid to take over Tiktok’s US operations as long as he can retain control of the asset, he told Reuters at the Davos event on Thursday.
The billionaire declined to share details on his funding sources, but said private equity firms and family offices have been able to provide opportunities.
“Capital is not the issue here. The issue here is waiting for (Tiktok parent) Bytedance, or the Chinese government to make a decision about the future of American TikTok,” said McCourt, who spoke on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. .
The flexibility in its much-publicized bid came shortly after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday delaying the implementation of a ban on the popular Chinese short video app for 75 days.
Trump also said this week he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture” in Tiktok, and that he was open to billionaires Elon Musk or Larry Ellison, the chairman of Oracle, buying social media application.
Do you need a break? Play the USA TODAY daily crossword puzzle.
Advocacy group Project McCourt filed a bid to buy Tiktok’s US assets in early January with plans to run the app on the group’s technology, which aims to let users choose how it is used and shared. their data. Tiktok sued to block the US ban, but the Supreme Court upheld it in a ruling last week.
supply
The prospect of gaining ownership of one of the world’s most popular video-sharing platforms, or at least its US audience, has attracted an ever-longer list of people and entities ranging from the worlds of finance, technology and entertainment.
Many in Trump’s orbit, or with close ties to the President, have linked to Tiktok since a US ban became a possibility under President Joe Biden’s administration. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in March that he was building a consortium of investors to bid for Tiktok.
Others who have expressed interest range from the CEO of Kingdom Holding, the investment firm of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal that was previously a major investor in what was then called Twitter, to a consortium of American investors including Jimmy Donaldson, better known by his online persona “MrBeast”.
But what they’re actually competing to buy remains a mystery, and that’s before potential bidders start answering questions about how they’ll finance a deal.
Existing Tiktok investors have shown support by expressing interest in backing part or all of the shares in a deal, according to McCourt, which potentially reduces the capital needed to pull off the $20 billion acquisition without Tiktok’s algorithm. .
US Tiktok Ban:Tiktok is still not available in app stores after Trump’s executive order. Here’s what we know so far.
SUPPORTING
In a meeting with the House Select Committee on China earlier this week, McCourt and his running mate Kevin O’Leary received assurances that lawmakers from both sides of the US political aisle are committed to securing a diversion. qualified.
“I came away with a very clear impression that the (US) Congress was pretty unified on implementing the legislation and causing either a ban or a sale of American Tiktok,” McCourt said.
For McCourt, who said he has never used tiktok, the app’s most attractive assets are its users, data and brand. His offer for Tiktok does not include buying the algorithm for Tiktok’s recommendation system, which is at the heart of the app’s popularity.
He wants to move Tiktok’s 170 million US users to his Project Freedom platform with digital infrastructure in the US, and expects the migration could be completed within a year if a deal happens.
McCourt said he was flexible on the ownership’s financial arrangements as long as he can retain control and transition Tiktok users to the digital infrastructure developed by the Liberty Project.
“It’s not just about who’s going to pay the most money,” he said. “This is about what can meet the very strict criteria set out in the legislation and be reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.”
Reporting by Krystal Hu in Davos, Switzerland; Additional reporting by David French in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis