The future of TikTok in the US is up in the air after it was banned, unless it is sold to a “friendly” owner. With a month to go, billionaire Reid Rasner says that he wants to buy it for the American people and not let it be “bought by another corporate fat cat.”
The CEO of wealth management company Omnivest Financial has presented an offer of $47.45 billion to purchase the popular short-video sharing social media platform currently owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance. The app, which has over 170 million users in the United States, has been valued at $50 billion.
While his is not the only offer on the table, recently Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian said that he’s joining a bid by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, he has laid out his plans publicly.
Billionaire Reid Rasner says, “Money isn’t the issue… I think they’re taking it very seriously”
The Wyoming entrepreneur spoke with NBC News to detail his acquisition plans, which he presented to the White House for review, saying that he is “prepared to move forward” with his bid. He hasn’t shared specifics of his discussions with the White House but said he received feedback on the offer put forth to ByteDance.
“They have our bid, they have our letter of engagement, and we’re prepared to move forward,” he told NBC News. “They know it, and I think they’re taking it very seriously from what it sounds like. There’s no holding back. The money isn’t the issue right now, bringing all the pieces together is the issue.”
“TikTok will always be free” but Rasner is looking for sponsors of the bid
Rasner launched a website called FoundersTok which asks “Worried TikTok will be banned or bought by another corporate fat cat?” It goes on to say that they want to give the power back to the content creators but that they “need your help.” They are asking people to pledge their support by becoming a Founder.
At FoundersTok, you can sign up as a “Pioneer” for “zero money down and have exclusive benefits on day one,” said Rasner, or become a sponsor through one of the paid tiers. Those include “Patriot” ($25-$280), “Minuteman” ($599-$5,999), and “Founding Father” ($12,000). Each of the paid tiers comes with their own color verification badge, red, white and blue, respectively, and higher levels of content boosting as well as other bonus features.
“Let be very, very clear. You will always be able to use TikTok for free and have a free account,” Rasner told NBC News. “But if you are an enterprise, a large corporation and you want to use TikTok for $12,000 a year you’re going to get exclusive benefits that will boost your content to the appropriate audience. So, you’re going to be able to go viral more often.”
“We’re going to take the guardrails off of this thing, give it back to the creators and allow them to grow and allow them to do something so special. And we want small businesses to thrive,” he added.
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This article was originally published by a en.as.com . Read the Original article here. .