A group of American investors led by tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley said they have secured over $20 billion to bid for TikTok’s US operation.<\/p>\n
Tinsley said<\/a> in a Bloomberg Television <\/i>interview that the bid has attracted notable tech industry figures, including Roblox<\/b> CEO David Baszucki <\/b>and Anchorage Digital<\/b> CEO Nathan McCauley<\/b>, as potential investors.<\/p>\n Tinsley said his group’s offer exceeds a competing $20 billion<\/b> bid, reportedly referring to the \u2018Project Liberty\u2019 proposal<\/a>\u00a0led by former Los Angeles Dodgers<\/b> owner Frank McCourt<\/b> and Shark Tank<\/i> star Kevin O’Leary<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n Popular YouTuber MrBeast<\/b>, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson<\/b>, has also been connected to the bid, according to Tinsley, although his spokesperson clarified to Bloomberg<\/i> that he hasn’t committed exclusively to any single offer. According to the spokesperson, Donaldson is in discussions with multiple parties and aims to align with the eventual leading bid.<\/p>\n The reported bid comes in response to recent US legislation banning TikTok unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance<\/b> divests its US operations. President Donald Trump<\/b> has signed an executive order<\/a> providing a 75-day delay in enforcing this law, in order to work out a negotiated solution.<\/p>\n However, Tinsley acknowledged that his group has not established direct communication with ByteDance, which maintains that TikTok’s US business is not for sale. “We have not heard back directly,” Tinsley told Bloomberg<\/i>. “It has been radio silence on their side.”<\/p>\n The timing of the bids may be significant as ByteDance has exhausted its legal options to maintain TikTok’s US presence. The situation is further complicated by broader US-China trade tensions, with TikTok potentially serving as a bargaining chip in negotiations as Trump weighs increased tariffs against China, Bloomberg<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Tinsley’s proposal emphasizes US-based control of the platform. He said his group \u201ccould stabilize TikTok and put it in a good place for users and data integrity across the United States population\u2026 We feel good and we have an all US-backed team with all of the data and servers and technoloy.\u201d<\/p>\n Separately on Tuesday (January 28), Bloomberg <\/i>reported<\/a>, citing Trump, that Microsoft<\/strong> is in talks to acquire the US arm of TikTok, used by more than 170 million<\/strong> Americans.<\/p>\n When asked if Microsoft is in talks to buy the app, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: \u201cI would say yes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of interest in TikTok. There\u2019s great interest in TikTok,\u201d Trump reportedly said.<\/p>\n Microsoft declined to comment on reports of its involvement in a deal with TikTok.<\/p>\n Over the weekend, Trump said<\/a> he was in discussions with several parties including Oracle<\/b> regarding the purchase of TikTok. He said a decision is likely within the next 30 days.<\/p>\n A source told NPR <\/i>that Oracle is interested<\/a> in investing \u201ctens of billions\u201d in TikTok. Notably, in 2020, Oracle was involved in a takeover attempt for TikTok, which eventually fell through despite securing Trump\u2019s approval<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jesse Tinsley said his planned bid has interest from Roblox CEO David Baszucki and Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley, as well as YouTuber MrBeast<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":219229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[133587,3938,133586,1747,133584,133585,133589,133588,129012,5874,131967],"class_list":["post-222244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-anchorage-digital","tag-bytedance","tag-david-baszucki","tag-donald-trump","tag-employer-com","tag-jesse-tinsley","tag-mrbeast","tag-nathan-mccaule","tag-roblox","tag-tiktok","tag-tiktok-ban"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}