With Trump’s TikTok extension, new potential U.S. buyers emerge

Who will “save” TikTok? YouTuber MrBeast, X owner Elon Musk and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison have been floated as potential buyers of the app in the past week.

Who will “save” TikTok? YouTube star MrBeast is among several wealthy figures who want to.

“TikTok, I’m on a private jet right now about to put in my official offer for this platform,” Jimmy Donaldson, better known on the internet as the creator MrBeast, said in a video Monday. “I might become your guys’ new CEO.”

Donaldson is one of a handful of people who have said they are interested in acquiring the app in a bid to satisfy a U.S. law that requires TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell it. But he, like others who are interested, would most likely have to pull together co-investors to come up with the funds.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was interested in Elon Musk or Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison buying it. Billionaire Frank McCourt's Project Liberty also created a consortium called “The People’s Bid,” which said it put an offer on the table.

The possibility of a TikTok sale once seemed remote. But in recent days, the idea has gained fresh momentum. Trump signed an executive order Monday giving ByteDance a 75-day extension to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner, effectively delaying the nationwide ban of the app that was originally set to take effect Sunday. The app’s U.S. operations have been valued at up to $50 billion if ByteDance does sell.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tiktok-potential-us-buyers-rcna188655

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