Based on the looming implementation of the “ban” part of the TikTok divest-or-ban law, parent company ByteDance is staring down a deadline to either sell TikTok’s US operations to an American company or be banned. President Donald Trump signaled Friday afternoon that he planned to once again give ByteDance another 75 days to find a non-Chinese buyer, fending off imminent threats that the company could be banned in the US as soon as tomorrow, like it was briefly in January before receiving its first extension from the Trump administration.
As the drama continues to unfold, a lot of investors and tech companies want to become that non-Chinese buyer. Marketing Brew compiled a list of the publicly known bids for TikTok’s US operations. They include:
The founder of OnlyFans: Social media platform Zoop, co-founded by OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely, threw in an eleventh-hour bid for the platform this week. The HBar Foundation, a cryptocurrency group, is a partner on the bid.
Amazon: Jeff Bezos’s e-commerce giant also decided to throw its hat in the ring at the last minute, submitting a formal offer this week via a letter sent directly to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to the New York Times.
AppLovin: The mobile app advertising platform, which brokers ad placements inside of mobile apps, submitted a last-minute bid this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal, AppLovin is courting casino mogul and former RNC finance chair Steve Wynn to help fund the bid.
Oracle and a group of investors: Oracle, which already acts as a data storage vendor for TikTok’s US ops, is, according to the Financial Times, part of a group of investors that has submitted a bid for the platform. The group also includes VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, whose co-founders are vocal supporters of the current administration. Oracle had previously bid on the company back in 2020, when President Trump signed an executive order to force a sale before it was blocked by a federal judge.
Microsoft: In January, President Trump said that Microsoft was in talks to pick up TikTok’s US ops. Like Oracle, Microsoft was in the running to acquire it back in 2020 during the first Trump administration.
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Blackstone: The private-equity firm was in talks this week to join a group of TikTok shareholders who are bidding on the platform, according to the New York Times.
Perplexity: The GenAI company has made a bid to merge with TikTok’s US business, with the goal of creating a new open-source algorithm that would power the platform, according to a March blog post from the company. Citing ByteDance sources, The Guardian reported a year ago that TikTok’s algorithm is “deemed core to ByteDance’s overall operations,” so any sale of the algorithm was labeled “highly unlikely”; this week, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration has weighed the possibility of allowing ByteDance to retain ownership of the algorithm and “lease” it to a US-based owner.
The founder of a payroll platform: Jesse Tinsley, who started the payroll platform Employer.com, put together a bid for the platform with partners like Roblox co-founder and CEO David Baszucki, as well as YouTuber MrBeast, with a bid worth more than $20 billion.
The guy from Shark Tank: Real estate mogul and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has teamed up with entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, who is famous for his role as one of the investors on the show Shark Tank, and Reddit co-founder and entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, among others, as part of a bid for the platform they’re calling “Project Liberty.”
A Wyoming billionaire: Reid Rasner, CEO of wealth management firm Omnivest Financial, threw in a $47.45 billion bid as part of an initiative called “FoundersTok.” Marketing services firm Adaly is a partner in the bid, and, on a call with Marketing Brew on Thursday, Rasner hinted that more partners could still be announced. With that said, he declined to share details of any communications with the Trump administration.
“I’m not willing to spoil the deal over anything right now,” he said. “There’s too much to lose.”
Update 4/4/2025: This piece has been updated to include information about the deadline extension.
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