Billionaire Frank McCourt Planning Bid To Acquire TikTok’s U.S. Operations

Frank McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, this week announced he is putting together a bid to buy the popular social media platform TikTok as the company’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain after President Joe Biden signed a bill that could get it banned nationwide.

In a statement released Wednesday, McCourt announced that his Project Liberty organization is building a consortium to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations in consultation with global investment bank Guggenheim Partners and law firm Kirkland & Ellis.

“We see this potential acquisition as an incredible opportunity to catalyze an alternative to the current tech model that has colonized the internet,” McCourt, a longtime critic of big tech, said.

“By bringing leading academics, technologists, behavioral scientists, psychologists and economic experts together with community partners, parents and citizens, we believe we can preserve — and enhance — the TikTok experience by giving individuals and creators on the platform the value and control they deserve regarding who has access to their data and how it is used,” he continued.

Leading technologists, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, best known for founding the World Wide Web, support the effort, the press release said.

ByteDance last month signaled it doesn’t have plans to sell TikTok.

McCourt, a real estate mogul, first spokeabout his plans to Semafor’s Ben Smith on Tuesday, where he explained he wants to reshape TikTok to be “a new and better version of the internet where individuals are respected and they own and control their identity and their data.”

“It connects 170 million people and allows them to be creative and build things and enjoy things and do things,” he added. “On the other hand,