The Rich Old Men Who Want to Buy TikTok

Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he’s putting together a group of investors to try and buy TikTok on Thursday. The company maintains it’s not for sale, but the app is in jeopardy after the House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would force its parent company ByteDance to sell the platform or face a ban. Mnuchin, who served under former President Trump, is part of a growing list of millionaires and billionaires who say they’d be thrilled to take the app off China’s hands.

“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.”

For now, however, a sale isn’t on the table. The bill that could force ByteDance’s divestment is nothing close to a done deal, and TikTok CEO Shou Chew jumped on the official TikTok account Wednesday and implied the company has no interest in selling. The social video platform argues the bill isn’t even intended to motivate a sale in the first place.

“This is a ban bill — full stop,” a TikTok spokesperson said. “Members of Congress know that and some of the bill’s biggest cheerleaders have publicly said this is a ban bill. And they’ve always made clear that their actual intention is banning TikTok in the United States”

The House of Representatives mobilized swiftly to get its TikTok bill out the door, introducing and passing the legislation in just 8 days with an overwhelming majority. But there’s far more opposition to interfering with TikTok’s business in the Senate, and Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer indicated he’s unsure whether he’ll even bring the bill up for a vote.

President Biden promised to sign the bill if it passes, but threatening America’s favorite app is a dangerous move in an election year. It may be in the Democrats’ interests to stymie the legislation. And even if it became a law, TikTok has a strong case to challenge the bill in court, which would likely tie the government up in years of court battles.

Regardless, the chance to purchase TikTok has American businessmen salivating, and Mnuchin isn’t the only one raising his hand.

Canadian investor Kevin O’Leary — better known as Shark Tank’s Mr. Wonderful — told Fox News he’d like to put together an American company to buy the app.

“Everyone knows TikTok leaks data to the CCP,” O’Leary tweeted. “It’s not a secret. It’s gotta be sold!” (Despite what O’Leary said everyone knows, the public has never seen a shred of evidence that TikTok leaks data to the Chinese government.)

Bobby Kotick, former CEO of the video game giant Activision, reportedly told ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming he’s interested in a TikTok buyout as well. Kotick floated the idea of a partnership to buy the company to a table of people that included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at a dinner earlier this week, according to the Wall Street Journal,

Then there’s Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the few Silicon Valley executives who openly supports Donald Trump. When Trump issued a failed executive order that attempted to force a TikTok sale in 2020, Ellison teamed up with Walmart in an attempt to buy the company. TikTok successfully defeated that executive order in court, but it did enter a partnership with Oracle. TikTok’s “Project Texas” is a quixotic operation meant to cool fears about China by housing American user data on Oracle servers in the U.S. Project Texas didn’t stop the war on TikTok, but if the app goes up for sale, Oracle would likely be first in line.

Oracle, Bobby Kotick, Steve Mnuchin, and Kevin O’Leary did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

What all of this overlooks is how difficult it would be to get the money together in the first place. TikTok is valued at something like $100 billion. Very few companies have that much capital to throw around save for tech giants like Amazon, Apple, and Meta — but a purchase by a tech company is unlikely, as the government would probably block such an effort over antitrust concerns.

When former President Trump attempted to force a sale back in 2020, TikTok was reportedly in talks with a number of potential suitors, including Microsoft, Netflix, and a variety of others. Years later, TikTok is exponentially more powerful, both as a business and a political force in its own right. The company is less likely to entertain the idea of a sale, at least in public, and will almost certainly fight to maintain control if the government gets closer to real action. And if a sale becomes non-hypothetical, it will probably be years before the ensuing court battles are settled. If and when that happens, far more potential buyers will voice their interest, but for now, TikTok is still in the hands of a Chinese owner, albeit uncomfortably.

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