Can TikTok be saved? A look at potential buyers and a possible merger amid pending ban

TikTok is slated to be banned in the U.S. unless a prospective buyer takes over before Congress' Sunday deadline.

Back in April, Congress decided the popular video sharing app must sell its U.S. assets currently belonging to China parent company ByteDance due to national security concerns. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the April law on Friday. President Joe Biden decided he would not enforce the ban leaving it up to President-elect Donald Trump, whose inauguration is set for Monday.

Despite attempting to ban TikTok during his first term in office, Trump has expressed a change of heart due to a wave of support from younger voters amid his 2024 campaign. He has since promised to "save" the social media platform through his exact course of action remains unclear. On Friday he wrote on Truth Social that his decision "will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!"

On Saturday, the incoming president told NBC News he expects to "most likely" implement a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban when he's sworn into office.

As TikTok U.S. users fear the end of the app, there remains a glimmer of hope from potential buyers to a possible merger with a U.S. search engine.

Is the TikTok ban getting a 90-day extension?

Trump is "most likely" going to place a 90-day reprieve from the incoming TikTok ban when he is president, he told NBC News.

The 90-day hold would give his new administration time to find a solution.

"I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at," Trump said in the phone interview Saturday with NBC News' "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker. "The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it's appropriate. You know, it's appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It's a very big situation."

Could TikTok merge with Perplexity AI?

U.S. tech company Perplexity AI placed a bid on Saturday to ByteDance to merge its search engine with TikTok U.S., according to Reuters.

The merge would launch a new entity allowing the majority of ByteDance’s current investors to maintain their equity stakes and saving the app's U.S. presence, Reuters reported. The company reportedly believes the China company will be more open to a merger than a sale.

Perplexity AI executives believe the merge would add video content to its search technology, which utilizes large language models and tools like OpenAI and Meta Platforms' open-source model Llama.

Paste BN has reached out to ByteDance and Perplexity AI for comment.

Who owns TikTok?

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based private global company founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. According to TikTok, around 60% of the parent company is owned by global institutional investors, 20% by the company’s founders, and 20% by employees.

TikTok, whose global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, is not a China-based company as the app is not even available for use in the Asian country. Douyin, which is another platform owned by ByteDance, is TikTok's Chinese mainland counterpart.

Why is TikTok being banned?

The banning of TikTok stems from concerns U.S. officials have about the level of control the Chinese government has over the company.

The Justice Department's two main gripes with the platform are the possibility of the Chinese government deciding to dictate what content users see to sway public opinion and the country possibly collecting the sensitive data of the millions of the app's American users.

Is MrBeast buying TikTok?

YouTube star MrBeast, whose real name is James "Jimmy" Donaldson, earlier this week shared an X post saying, "Okay fine, I'll buy Tik Tok so it doesn't get banned." The YouTuber, who Forbes reported makes $84 million annually, then posted a subsequent X post saying, "Unironically I’ve had so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can pull this off."

While MrBeast's remarks remain murky, McCourt announced last week that his Project Liberty initiative made a formal offer to Bytedance. Project Liberty's President Tomicah Tillemann said in a statement that the organization would not publicly disclose the bid amount, however, the group previously divulged that it secured $20 billion in verbal commitments from an unnamed group of investors ready to buy TikTok.

Who could buy TikTok?

Musk, MrBeast, investor and "Shark Tank" host Kevin O'Leary and Los Angeles Dodgers former owner Frank McCourt's Project Liberty have been the names primarily connected to the purchase of TikTok.

Other names that have been rumored as possible buyers include Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of video game publisher Activision; Walmart CEO Doug McMillon; Microsoft; and video-sharing platform Rumble.

Could Elon Musk buy TikTok?

Although Musk has not publicly announced an intention to buy TikTok, he did denounce the platform's banning back in April.

"In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform," Musk wrote in an X post. "Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for."

Musk, who along with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy was tapped by Trump to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force to cut government spending, does have experience buying and owning a social media platform after he purchased X (formerly Twitter) in October 2022.

Chinese officials have also mentioned Musk and working with Trump's administration when discussing contingency plans for the TikTok ban, Bloomberg reported. Musk has previously met with Chinese leaders and been supportive of them and the country, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

When questioned about Musk potentially buying TikTok, a representative for the platform told WSJ, "We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction.”

Is Frank McCourt or Kevin O'Leary buying TikTok?

McCourt and O'Leary are also among the rumored potential buyers.

O'Leary could be one of the investors Project Liberty hinted to as he confirmed that he would be joining McCourt in a plan to purchase TikTok.

Kotick, McMillon, Rumble and Microsoft remain possibilities to buy TikTok

Kotick is a possible TikTok buyer as he has previously spoken to ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming about acquiring the platform, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024.

Rumble offered to buy TikTok in March 2024 with the company saying it was “ready to join a consortium with other parties” to purchase the app, Forbes reported. Neither Rumble nor CEO Chris Pavlovski have disclosed details about the offer, the outlet said.

Walmart and Microsoft would return to the negotiation table to buy TikTok after the companies proposed a bid in 2020 to acquire the U.S. arm of the platform. McMillon and Walmart also joined a bid with Oracle to take over TikTok's U.S. operations in 2020, but ByteDance was granted an injunction, thus halting Trump's planned ban and ultimately dissolving the deal.

Since then, McMillon hosted ByteDance's founder in Bentonville, Arkansas in 2023, The New York Post reported, citing sources close to the situation.

Contributing: Mike Snider, Greta Cross, Clare Mulroy, Maureen Groppe & Rebecca Morin, Paste BN