The Senate is now considering a bipartisan bill that could force a sale of TikTok, with the House having already passed a similar measure and President Joe Biden throwing his support behind it. If the legislation is signed into law — and if it survives likely legal challenges — the question then becomes: Who would buy TikTok?
The bill would require the app’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the social media platform within 165 days of the law going into effect or else the platform will be banned from US app stores.
But TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has said that the company wouldn’t go down without a fight: “We will continue to do all we can including exercising our legal rights to protect this amazing platform we have built with you,” he said in a video statement on Wednesday. The Chinese government has also expressed opposition to the bill and would have to approve any divestiture plan.
TikTok’s US market has a roughly $100 billion valuation by some estimates, however, and investors believe that ByteDance could ultimately consider a sale as a last resort.
The companies with the resources to buy TikTok outright probably can’t do so because of antitrust concerns, though. And if they can’t buy it, it’s not clear anybody else could pull together the money to make an alternative offer.
Still, some individual investors have expressed interest in putting together a group bid for the company. If any of the prospective buyers hold controlling stakes or seats on the board of competing tech firms, however, that could potentially raise antitrust concerns, said Abraham L. Wickelgren, a professor at the University of Texas Law School specializing in antitrust and law and economics.
Steven Mnuchin, the former US Treasury secretary during the Trump administration and current head of Liberty Strategic Capital, says he supports the bill and is gathering investors to buy TikTok. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy…
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