Billionaire US businessman Frank McCourt told Reuters that he plans to fundamentally overhaul TikTok's business model as part of a planned Chinese-funded bid for the short-form video app.
McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, is seeking a total of $20 billion from a coalition of investors to bail the app out of legal purgatory while it awaits a Supreme Court ruling that will decide whether it will be forced to sell. He said that he had received a commitment of funding. Business development in the United States.
His vision for TikTok includes revamping the company's advertising model to give users control over the types of ads and content they want to see.
Over time, TikTok will be able to generate revenue through e-commerce and licensing data for artificial intelligence training models with user consent, reducing the company's reliance on advertising.
“Giving them permission to use their data and getting paid for it is flipping this 180 degrees and empowering users,” McCourt said this week.
This plan has some hurdles. Including TikTok's repeated claims Its owner, Chinese tech company ByteDance, says it cannot sell it.
McCourt said the bid for TikTok would exclude the algorithms that determine what content users see to reduce complexity for ByteDance.
In 2020, the Chinese government added content recommendation algorithms to its export control list, requiring any sale or sale of TikTok's algorithms to go through an administrative permit process.
TikTok's appeal to the Supreme Court is a last-ditch effort to overturn a law signed by President Biden that seeks to force sales citing national security concerns, otherwise the app would be shut down on Jan. 19. It will be banned.
McCourt said he believes the Supreme Court will uphold the law, and that ByteDance may then be open to negotiations. Until then, the company is focused on ensuring a smooth acquisition path.
McCourt said he and his team had “preliminary conversations” with members of President-elect Donald Trump.
President Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020, but later reversed his stance, saying on December 16, “I have a passion for TikTok in my heart.''
President Trump's press secretary did not respond to a request for comment.
McCourt said the team is also talking to potential new TikTok CEO candidates.
The team approached V. Pappas, TikTok's former chief operating officer, one of the people said.
Pappas did not respond to requests for comment. McCourt declined to say who he was talking to about the CEO role.
TikTok's plans also include moving its technology to an open source protocol developed by Project Liberty, an organization founded by McCourt.
This protocol allows users to take control of their data and easily move it to other locations on the Internet.
The plan has implications for the CEO search.
“This is a big project to extend the technology we have built, but also a vision for a better internet. We share that vision and we have the capabilities and skills to make both a reality. We’re talking to people who are prepared,” McCourt said.
