Following the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it’s not sold by Sunday, rumors of prospective buyers for the popular social media platform continue to float online.
From Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to YouTuber MrBeast, the growing list of speculative buyers continues to give fans and users of the app a glimmer of hope.
President Joe Biden, who after Congress approval signed a sell-or-ban TikTok bill on national security grounds in April, decided this week that he will leave it up to incoming President Donald Trump to enforce the ban on the video-sharing app.
“Our position on this has been clear: TikTok should continue to operate but under American ownership,” a White House official said. “Given the timing of when it goes into effect over a holiday weekend a day before inauguration, it will be up to the next administration to implement.”
Trump, who attempted to ban TikTok during his first administration, has since promised to “save” the popular app, though it is unclear how he could do this. In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said, “The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!”
With only a couple of days left, here is what to know about the rumored potential buyers of TikTok.
Who owns TikTok?
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based private global company founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. According to TikTok, around 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, which is another platform owned by ByteDance, is TikTok’s Chinese mainland counterpart.
Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean businessman, is the app’s CEO. Chew will sit down with Trump’s high-profile guests as the president-elect delivers his inaugural address on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Musk, Amazon.com Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg are all rumored to be in attendance, the outlet said.
Why is TikTok being banned?
The banning of TikTok stems from concerns U.S. 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 of the Chinese government deciding to dictate what content users see to sway public opinion and the country possibly collecting the sensitive data of the millions of the app’s American users.
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 connected to the purchase 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 video-sharing platform Rumble.
TikTok ban:Supreme Court upholds law that could ban the platform in the US
Could Elon Musk buy TikTok?
Although Musk has not publicly announced an intention to buy TikTok, he did denounce the platform’s banning back in April.
“In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform,” Musk wrote in an X post. “Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It 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, does have experience buying and owning a social media platform after he purchased X (formerly Twitter) in October 2022.
Chinese officials have also mentioned Musk and working with Trump’s administration when discussing contingency plans for the TikTok ban, Bloomberg reported. Musk has previously met with Chinese leaders and been supportive of them and the country, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
When questioned about Musk potentially buying TikTok, a representative for the platform told WSJ, “We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction.”
Is Frank McCourt, Kevin O’Leary or MrBeast buying TikTok?
McCourt, O’Leary and MrBeast have all either voiced their desire to buy TikTok or have even straight up said they’ve offered.
MrBeast, whose real name is James “Jimmy” Donaldson, earlier this week shared an X post saying, “Okay fine, I’ll buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned.” The YouTuber, who Forbes reported makes $84 million annually, then posted a subsequent X post saying, “Unironically I’ve had so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can pull this off.”
While MrBeast’s remarks remain murky, McCourt announced last week that his Project Liberty initiative made a formal offer to Bytedance. Project Liberty’s President Tomicah Tillemann said in a statement that the organization would not publicly disclose the bid amount, however, the group previously divulged that it secured $20 billion in verbal commitments from an unnamed group of investors ready to buy TikTok.
O’Leary could be one of the investors Project Liberty hinted to as he confirmed that he would be joining McCourt in a plan to purchase TikTok.
Kotick, McMillon, Rumble and Microsoft remain possibilities to buy TikTok
Kotick is a possible TikTok buyer as he has 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 with the company saying it was “ready to join a consortium with other parties” to purchase the app, Forbes reported. Neither Rumble nor CEO Chris Pavlovski have disclosed details about the offer, the outlet said.
Walmart and Microsoft would return to the negotiation table to buy TikTok after the companies proposed a bid in 2020 to acquire the U.S. arm of the platform. McMillon and Walmart also joined a bid with Oracle to take over TikTok’s U.S. operations in 2020, but ByteDance was granted an injunction, thus halting Trump’s planned ban and ultimately dissolving the deal.
Since then, McMillon hosted ByteDance’s founder in Bentonville, Arkansas in 2023, The New York Post reported, citing sources close to the situation.
Contributing: Mike Snider, Greta Cross, Clare Mulroy, Maureen Groppe & Rebecca Morin/ USA TODAY
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