Ex-LA Dodgers owner readying bid for TikTok

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Former LA Dodgers owner Frank McCourt is said to be planning a bid for TikTok as the video-sharing app faces a potential ban in the US.

McCourt is set to build a consortium with the view of making an offer for the social media company to Chinese owner ByteDance, he said Tuesday.

ByteDance had been ordered to sell TikTok under a law signed by president Joe Biden earlier this year but has since launched a challenge in court.

Were the ban to go ahead, TikTok would have to be sold in 2025 to ensure its survival in the US.

“We see this potential acquisition as an incredible opportunity to catalyze an alternative to the current tech model that has colonized the internet,” McCourt said in a statement on Wednesday.

Based on data from Bloomberg Intelligence analysts, TikTok’s US assets are worth between US$35 billion to US$40 billion.

Whether McCourt has secured funding for the bid remains to be seen, with the proposal said to be supported by World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee.

This would be launched through McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which was set up in 2021 to rival the likes of Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, ETR:FB2A, SWX:FB).

Through such a takeover of TikTok, McCourt added in an interview that “a new and better version of the internet” would be built “where individuals are respected and they own and control their identity and their data”.