A wrinkle in lawmakers’ plans for TikTok: Finding a willing buyer
CNN
The United States is now one step closer to banning TikTok or forcing a sale. There’s just one pesky little $100 billion problem: Who’s gonna buy this thing?
The United States is now one step closer to banning TikTok or forcing a sale. There’s just one pesky little $100 billion problem: Who’s gonna buy this thing? Technically, the legislation that passed overwhelmingly in the House on Wednesday is a cudgel that seeks to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to a non-Chinese entity. If it fails to do so within six months of the law going into effect, US app stores would be prohibited from offering TikTok here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. To be clear, a sale is not imminent. The bill faces an uncertain path in the Senate, where many lawmakers have said they’re uncomfortable with meddling in business affairs and putting limits on free speech. And even if it were to make it to President Joe Biden’s desk, the government in Beijing has said unequivocally that it would oppose a forced sale. The ban is a long-shot effort by lawmakers who harbor some (arguably overwrought) concerns about Americans’ data security winding up in the hands of Chinese spy agencies. But the prospect of even a potential For Sale sign on TikTok’s lawn has fueled speculation about who’d be in line to buy it. It’s not hard to see why Silicon Valley bigwigs would be salivating: TikTok might be the most valuable app on the planet that they don’t already control. Its US segment alone, with its 170 million users, would be valued at roughly $100 billion, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. If a sale were to happen, “TikTok’s strategic value and consumer platform will have a number of financial and tech strategic players interested,” Ives said in a note Wednesday.
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