So if you've been following the TIKTOK drama of late then you would be sure to realise everyday it's a new scenario.
Whilst content creators and advertisers hold their TIKTOK breathes worldwide whilst well let's face it, until President Trump decides if he wants to house the rambunctious teenager TIKTOK or throw it our with well, the social media dish water....
The latest development is that Jimmy Donaldson — better known online as MrBeast — isn’t in the TikTok bidding race just yet, according to a representative for the YouTube star.
First, on Monday, the CEO of Employer.com, Jesse Tinsley, said MrBeast is part of an all-cash bid for TikTok that he’s leading. This was also repeated in a press release put out by the law firm representing Tinsley’s group.
So who is Mr Beast you ask?
James Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson, born in 1998, in Kansas, and is known as Mr Beast with 340 million subscribers on any youtube channel and the 3rd most followed TIKTOK creator with over 106 million followers.
Others in line to potentially buy TIKTOK are Elon Musk - The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been at the center of countless tech speculation—and buying TikTok is no exception. As per reports, Chinese government officials considered selling TikTok's U.S. operations to Musk, especially given his improving ties with President Trump, though ByteDance called these reports "pure fiction."
Perplexity AI - As per media reports, Perplexity AI submitted an offer to ByteDance to merge the two companies alongside New Capital Partners. This deal purportedly allows many of ByteDance's current investors to retain their equity stakes, a source familiar with the situation said in a media report.
Kevin O'Leary and Frank McCourt - Project Liberty—helmed by billionaire and Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt—partnered with "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary. Submitted on January 9, the group's plan would resructure TikTok to collect less user data. O'Leary told he put forth a $20 billion bid, according to media reports.
Bobby Kotick, The former Activision Blizzard CEO is rumoured to have shown interest in TikTok. As per reports, Kotick floated the idea with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others to help fund a deal.
Steve Mnuchin - The former Treasury Secretary said in an earlier media report in March 2024 that he planned to "put together a group" to buy TikTok. In May, he revealed he had approached multiple tech firms, though the TikTok algorithm reportedly remains off-limits in any sale, complicating negotiations.
Rumble - The video-sharing platform announced in March 2024 it was "ready to join a consortium with other parties" to acquire TikTok. Neither Rumble nor its CEO, Chris Pavlovski, have publicly detailed how much the offer is worth.
Also Oracle and Walmart announced in September 2020 the companies had reached a deal to acquire TikTok, but that deal fell through after the Biden administration reportedly stopped it from moving forward to address the app's potential security risks.
Microsoft had also reportedly offered to buy TikTok from ByteDance in August 2020, but the deal nearly closed before falling apart.
So one can only wonder which Tech Billionaire will be the new TIKTOK owner?
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