TMTPOST -- A group of U.S. investors organized by Employer.com CEO Jesse Tinsley has secured much more than $20 billion for their offer to own TikTok, according to head of the HR and payroll software provider.
Credit：China Daily
The aforementioned group’s bid is “significantly higher” than a roughly US$20 billion offer from a rival buyer, and the group estimated it would cost it $250 billion to own TikTok operation in U.S., Tinsley said in a Bloomberg interview on Wednesday. Roblox co-founder and CEO David Baszucki and Anchorage Digital co-founder and CEO Nathan McCauley also have been recruited in the group as investors, according to Tinsley.
Tinsley said his investor group hasn’t been in direct contact with TikTok’s Chinese ownver ByteDance, which has insisted it would not divest TikTok business in the United States. “We have not heard back directly,” Mr Tinsley told Bloomberg. “It has been radio silence on their side.”
Tinsley didn’t specify the rival buyer, which could be the Project Liberty bid organised by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and “Shark Tank” personality Kevin O’Leary. McCourt last Friday told CNBC his investor group is “the only bidder that meet” the criteria of sales of TikTok U.S. version. McCourt said he has raised the money to buy the business and has presented an offer to ByteDance.
Though not disclosing the size of the offer, McCourt said his group has come up with a “very big number”, adding that TikTok U.S. accounts around 8% of ByteDance revenue and less than 8% of the user base. McCourt claimed he the technology to keep TikTok running on American phones and any deal without ByteDance’s existing algorithm that powers the U.S. version.
Perplexity AI last week has presented a new proposal to ByteDance that would allow the U.S. government to own up to 50% of a new entity that merges the AI search engine startup based in San Francisco with TikTok’s U.S. business, the Associated Press quoted people familiar with the matter earlier this week. Perplexity was reported to revise its proposed plan that had submitted on January 18, a day before the law that bans TikTok operating in U.S. went into effect.
According to the report, Perplexity initially prposed to create a new structure that would merge the startup with TikTok’s U.S. business and include investments from other investors, while ByteDance didn’t respond to it. The revised proposal, based off of feedback from the Trump administration, would reportedly allow the U.S. government to own no more than half of that new structure once it launches an initial pubic offering (IPO) of at least $300 billion, but the government would not have voting power, nor a seat on the new company’s board.
Trump on January 20, his first day in office, issued an executive order to suspend application of the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (the “Act”) to TikTok temporarily. The order effectively gave TikTok a 75-day reprieve from TikTok ban under the Act that forces ByteDance to divest its U.S. assets including TikTok.
Retuers later Saturday reported Trump said he was discussing with many people over acquiring TikTok and could make a decision on its future in the coming 30 days. Trump on Monday told reporter Microsoft Corporation was in talks to take over TikTok. He also suggested he would like to see a bidding war over the application.
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