After a federal ban temporarily shut down TikTok in the US, President-elect Donald Trump has granted ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, more time to find a buyer. This pause on the ban has brought relief to millions of users, but the long-term fate of TikTok in the US remains uncertain.
The possibility of the US outlawing TikTok kept influencers and users in anxious limbo for over four years as politicians and judges debated the fate of the video-sharing platform. The moment its fans dreaded arrived on Sunday when the platform went dark in response to a federal ban.
By early Monday, TikTok said it was restoring services to users in the US after President-elect Donald Trump on Truth Social said giving TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance extra time to find an approved buyer before a ban goes into full effect. Several parties have expressed interest in buying the platform, but ByteDance has repeatedly said it does not plan to sell. Experts have also said the Chinese government would be unlikely to approve a sale that includes TikTok’s coveted algorithm.Wedbush analyst Dan Ives estimates TikTok is worth “well north of $US100 billion ($161 billion)” with the algorithm — and potentially up to $US200 billion in a “best-case scenario”.“Without the algorithm, it’s $US40 billion to $US50 billion,” Ives said. He did not believe ByteDance and Beijing would sell TikTok with the algorithm. Lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance have said it is impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm — the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would probably block under any divestiture plan — would turn the US version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content. US officials said the proprietary algorithm was vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect.Billionaire businessman and real estate mogul Frank McCourt and his internet advocacy group recently announced it had submitted a proposal to buy the social media site from ByteDance. Famed Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary has also joined the effort.If a sale occurs, McCourt, a former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, said he would plan to restructure TikTok and give more agency to people “over their digital identities and data” by migrating the platform to an open-source protocol that allows for more transparency.Shortly after Congress passed the ban, Mnuchin told he had started creating an investor group that would purchase the popular social media company. He offered no details about who may be in the group or about TikTok’s possible valuation. Former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt is part of a group trying to buy the American arm of TikTok.When Mnuchin was Treasury secretary, he helped the Trump administration broker a deal in 2020 that would have had US corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok on national security grounds.The Wall Street Journal reported that former Blizzard-Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has discussed putting a proposal together with Open AI billionaire Sam Altman. Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) recently posted on social media he had interest in being part of a deal. Whether these buyers are serious and actively assembling a bid for the company, however, is not clear.Trump’s authority to hit pause on a law that passed by wide margins in Congress, the US Supreme Court, that was unanimously upheld on Friday and which took effect on Sunday is uncertain. Trump has credited TikTok with helping him win the support of more young voters in last year’s election. Only the sitting president can issue a 90-day stay on the ban and only then if a buyer has taken concrete steps toward a purchase
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