Big Name Joins the Movement to Buy TikTok

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has joined billionaire Frank McCourt's bid to acquire TikTok as a strategic adviser, reports the AP. McCourt's internet advocacy organization, Project Liberty, announced this week that Ohanian, an investor married to tennis star Serena Williams, had joined a consortium called "The People's Bid for TikTok." "I'm officially now one of the people trying to buy TikTok US—and bring it on-chain," Ohanian said in a series of posts Tuesday on X, referencing a decentralized, blockchain-based platform that Project Liberty says it will leverage to provide users more control over their online data.

If successful in its bid, Project Liberty said the technology "will serve as the backbone of the redesigned TikTok, ensuring that privacy, security, and digital independence are no longer optional but foundational." When asked by an X user on Monday what he would call TikTok if he purchased it, Ohanian said: "TikTok: Freedom Edition." Under a federal bill passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by former President Biden last year, TikTok was required to cut ties with its China-based parent company, ByteDance, or face a ban by Jan. 19. In one of his first executive orders signed in January, President Trump extended the deadline for TikTok to find new ownership until early April.

McCourt's consortium—which includes Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary—has already offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for the US platform. Some analysts estimate TikTok could be worth much more even without its coveted algorithm, which McCourt has said he's not interested in. Trump said in January that Microsoft is among the US companies looking to take control of TikTok. Others eyeing TikTok include the AI startup Perplexity AI, which has proposed to merge its business with TikTok's US platform and give the US government a stake in the new entity.

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There's also Jesse Tinsley, the founder of payroll firm Employer.com. Tinsley has said a consortium he put together—which includes the CEO of video game platform Roblox—is offering ByteDance more than $30 billion for TikTok. (More Alexis Ohanian stories.)