Frank McCourt's Project Liberty advances bid for TikTok
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Project Liberty, founded by billionaire Frank McCourt, has pulled together participants for a consortium of investors interested in pursuing a "peoples bid" for TikTok, McCourt told Axios.
Why it matters: A U.S. court has until January 19 to decide whether TikTok should be banned if it does not find a U.S. buyer.
- With Big Tech under record antitrust scrutiny, a wealthy U.S. investor group could be a plausible buyer for the app — which could be worth anywhere from $20 billion to $100 billion, depending on how the U.S. part of the business is split from its parent.
State of play: McCourt launched Project Liberty, which includes both a for-profit company and a non-profit institute, in 2021 to help build and advocate for a safer and more equitable internet. He announced his intentions to assemble an investor group to buy the app in May.
- Participants in Project Liberty's investor group, who are not yet being disclosed, have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion of capital, a spokesperson said.
- Project Liberty has held conversations with a diverse set of stakeholders across the financial, business and investment sectors and will begin an investor roadshow early next week in New York City and San Francisco.
Of note: Project Liberty says that its bid has the support of several internet pioneers, including World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory senior research scientist David Clark.
- The group is working in consultation with Guggenheim Securities, the investment banking and capital markets business of Guggenheim Partners, and Kirkland & Ellis, a global law firm, on its bid.
Between the lines: McCourt believes Project Liberty "is uniquely positioned to assume stewardship of TikTok" because of the tech and governance protocols it has built to prioritize user privacy and safety.
- "This landmark acquisition would catalyze our long committed desire to usher in the era of an upgraded internet — one that prioritizes safety, democracy, and civil discourse," McCourt told Axios in a statement.
- "The technology we are building respects individuals by returning to them ownership and control of their identity and their data, not by surveilling them."
- "This is possible because we're not influenced by foreign actors, we're not beholden to Big Tech, and we've built the necessary technology that can support this powerful platform loved by more than 170 million Americans."
Zoom in: Alongside its research and policy efforts, Project Liberty has also developed its own blockchain-based, decentralized web infrastructure to make social media safer and more secure.
- In 2022, MeWe, a free and subscription-based social media platform that bills itself as a privacy-focused alternative to Facebook, became the first social network to launch using Project Liberty's decentralized social networking protocol (DSNP).
Yes, but: McCourt and other interested bidders may be eager to get their hands on TikTok, but the Chinese government has pushed back aggressively against the idea of selling it.
- Congress passed a bill in April that President Biden signed into law requiring TikTok parent ByteDance to divest the U.S. arm of the app or face a ban.
- TikTok has filed a legal challenge of the law.
- President-elect Trump, who has reversed his position on TikTok and now says he doesn't support a ban, could try to get a Republican-led Congress to repeal the law or pressure the DOJ not to enforce a ban.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to show Project Liberty is partly a for-profit company and partly a nonprofit institute (not just a nonprofit initiative).
