YouTube and TikTok star MrBeast is looking to buy TikTok as part of an investor group, as the 75-day deadline passes for the social media company to find a non-Chinese owner or risk losing be permanently banned.
“Okay, I’ll buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned,” MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, job the X on January 13. But even though his tone was joking, Donaldson — the most popular YouTuber and third-most popular TikToker — was serious, his lawyer told CNN on Tuesday.
The offer from Donaldson and a group of investors is just the latest twist in recent extraordinary days for TikTok.
It went dark Saturday night as a nationwide ban loomed, but it was back online about 12 hours later, after President Donald Trump announced he would sign an executive order to delay the ban. within 75 days.
Two days after his post on X, Donaldson posted a video on TikTok, where he announced his intention to buy the social media platform.
“I just got out of a meeting with a bunch of billionaires., TikTok, we are serious,” Mr. Beast said in the video. “This is my lawyer here, we have an offer ready for you, we want to buy the platform.”
This offer follows the decision of the Supreme Court to confirm the federal law banning TikTok unless it is sold to a company not based in China, a spokesperson for the law firm Paul Hastings, which represents the consortium in the bid, told CNN.
The investor group, led by Jesse Tinsley, founder and CEO of Employer.com, is made up of “institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.”,» who don’t want to see the application disappear.
The proposal would not disrupt TikTok’s operations and would ensure continuity for its 170 million U.S. users, according to the investor group.
“Our offer represents a win-win solution that preserves this vital platform, while addressing legitimate national security concerns,” Tinsley said in a statement. statement. The press release did not reveal the amount of the offer.
CNN has contacted TikTok for comment.
Talk of a possible sale of TikTok to a US-based company has been circulating since 2020, when President Trump, during his first term in the White House, issued an executive order aimed at ban TikTok.
Last week, after the Supreme Court unanimously agreed to uphold a federal law banning TikTok unless ByteDance, its parent company, sells the platform to a company not based in China.
TikTok has gone dark SATURDAYas a message on the app said: “Sorry, TikTok is not available at the moment. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the United States. Unfortunately, this means you cannot use TikTok at this time.”
The app came back online after Trump announced he would sign an executive order after his inauguration on Monday to “extend the time before the law’s prohibitions take effect.”
Even if the decree, signed Monday evening, delays the entry into force of the ban on TikTok by 75 days, it does not provide a permanent solution.
ByteDance will sell to a new buyer – although it has no plans to do so – or the Trump administration will have to enact new law to overturn the previous one, an unlikely scenario given the strong bipartisan support for existing legislation. received in Congress. .
Chinese officials were plans to sell at least part of the app to tech mogul Elon Musk, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported. CNN has not independently confirmed the discussions, and ByteDance and Elon Musk have not responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
A band called “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” which includes Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary and billionaire Frank McCourt, has also offered to buy TikTok.
The People’s candidacy is supported by investments from Guggenheim Securities as well as World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.
TikTok’s U.S. assets, without the algorithm, are estimated at $40 billion to $50 billion, according to Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.
But because it’s perhaps the algorithm that makes up most of TikTok’s value, it’s difficult to give the company a precise number.
McCourt’s group is not saying publicly how much it offered, although the billionaire previously indicated he valued the assets at around $20 billion.
“We will refrain from publicly sharing the financial details of our offering until ByteDance is able to review our proposal,” O’Leary and McCourt’s group said in a statement last week.