YouTube and TikTok star MrBeast is looking to buy TikTok as part of a group of investors as a 75-day deadline looms for the social media company to find a non-Chinese owner or risk being banned forever.
“Ok ok, I’m going to buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned,” MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, posted on X on January 13. But while his tone was joking, Donaldson — the single 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 what has been a remarkable few days for TikTok.
It went dark Saturday night as a nationwide ban loomed, but came back online about 12 hours later after President Donald Trump announced he would sign an executive order to delay the ban. with 75 days.
Two days after his X post, 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 mean business,” Mr. Beast said in the video. “This is my lawyer here, we have an offer ready for you, we want to buy the rig.”
The bid comes in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a federal law barring TikTok unless it is sold to a company not based in China, a spokesman for the law firm Paul Hastings, which is representing the consortium in the bid, told CNN. a statement.
The investor group, which is led by Jesse Tinsley, founder and CEO of Employer.com, consists of “institutional investors and high net worth individuals,” who don’t want to see the app go away.
The proposal would not disrupt TikTok’s operations and would ensure continuity for its 170 million US 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. The statement did not disclose the amount of the offer.
CNN has reached out to 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 trying to stop 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 went dark on Saturday, with a message on the app saying: “Sorry, TikTok is currently unavailable. A law banning TikTok has been passed in the U.S. Unfortunately, this means you can’t use TikTok right now.”
The app returned online after Trump announced he would sign an executive order after his inauguration on Monday to “extend the period of time before the law’s bans take effect.”
While the executive order, which was signed Monday evening, delays the implementation of the TikTok ban for 75 days, it does not provide a permanent solution.
ByteDance will either sell to a new buyer — despite saying it has no intention of doing so — or the Trump administration will have to pass a new law to overturn the previous one, an unlikely scenario given given the strong bipartisan support the existing legislation received in Congress. .
Chinese officials have been Tech mogul Elon Musk is considering selling at least part of the app, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported. CNN has not independently confirmed the discussions, and ByteDance and Elon Musk did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
A group 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 Offering is backed by investment from Guggenheim Securities as well as World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.
TikTok’s US assets, excluding the algorithm, are estimated to be worth between $40 billion and $50 billion, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.
But since the algorithm may be where most of TikTok’s value lies, it’s hard to put a firm dollar figure on the company.
McCourt’s group is not publicly saying how much it offered, although the billionaire previously indicated he valued the assets at about $20 billion.
“We will refrain from publicly sharing the financial specifics of our offer until ByteDance is able to review our proposal,” O’Leary and McCourt’s group said in a statement last week.